In a recent interview with a Greek publication Ethos Media, Ante Banovac, GrECo COO, and George Zafiriou, CEO & Board Chairman at Comergon, shared how this strategic partnership came to be and what it means for both sides.
GrECo, Vienna-based leader in insurance broking and risk advisory across Central and Eastern Europe, has secured a majority stake in Comergon. This acquisition expands GrECo’s presence in Southeastern Europe by incorporating the Greek and Cypriot specialist broker, known for its expertise in corporate Property & Casualty coverage and Health & Benefits solutions. The strategic move strengthens GrECo’s regional network by connecting GrECo’s existing services with operations in adjacent territories.
In a recent interview with a Greek publication Ethos Media, Ante Banovac, GrECo COO, and George Zafiriou, CEO & Board Chairman at Comergon, shared how this strategic partnership came to be and what it means for both sides. Read the full interview here.
Watch the snippets from the interview on our Youtube profile as well.
How does Comergon joining GrECo fit with our corporate strategy?
What were the main motivations for GrECo behind the acquisition of Comergon and how did you identify Comergon as a potential acquisition target?
Banovac: First of all, the motivation for GrECo lies in GrECo’s strategy as a leading independent corporate broker and risk advisor in Eastern Europe, so it was only natural for us to turn to Greece and look for who could be a suitable partner and who was willing to consider working with us. Through this search, we got to know Comergon better and decided to invest in it.
How does this acquisition align with GrECo’s strategic goals and vision? How will this acquisition strengthen GrECo’s market position and competitive advantage?
Banovac: I would like to take this opportunity to announce that GrECo is celebrating its 100th birthday this year! Throughout these years we have always been focused on our clients’ needs and our values of reliability and trust. It is on these principles that our company has been built. GrECo’s growth path over the last 100 years has accelerated much more strongly since 1989 and afterwards, following the fall of the Berlin Wall, where we followed, as it were, our Austrian clients into the neighboring countries of Eastern Europe. GrECo actually took one of the first steps outside Austria and was one of the first brokers to offer their services also in Central and Eastern Europe.
This is where the story of growth outside of Austria began. In Austria now, GrECo is, for decades, the leading corporate Insurance Broker and Risk Management Consultant. Starting in 1989 in Hungary, we later expanded to Slovakia, Slovenia,, the Czech Republic, and then to Poland and other regions, and step by step we built up strong teams.
Since I joined GrECo in 2014, we have focused very strongly on selecting the right people to lead our organizations across the region & in each country, always embodying our family values and the ethos that GrECo stands for. Acquisitions are also part of our growth strategy.They are very carefully considered in terms of compatibility of our corporate culture, compatibility of knowledge, and always considered through the lens of a long-term perspective. We never make acquisitions just to grow.
And all of this, over 30 years, has led to GrECo’s current status as one of the main and leading independent Insurance Brokers & Risk Management Consultants in Europe, not just in Eastern Europe, but the whole of Europe. And in Eastern Europe, we are the leaders.
How joining with GrECo is going to make us all stronger together?
Why did Comergon seek a strategic partner at this time?
Zafeiriou: The issue of perpetuation of a business should always be a high priority for any company operating in the insurance sector. We started thinking about our options for the future more than three years ago, and made many preparations that led us to the point of seeking a strategic investor for our company. There are many reasons for this. First and foremost, you have to look at some point to see if your future is more likely to be stronger if you go it alone or if you work with a strategic partner.
There is also the question of how competitive you become. And Comergon has grown into a very important player in the Greek market. We are ranked quite high among independent Corporate Risk Insurance Brokers. I think we are fourth in the market today. But we see that in order to continue to grow, we need to target higher, bigger and more demanding accounts, which means that we will have to compete mainly with our multinational colleagues. As a result, we have had a deficit in our competitive advantages. And in this context, we started to feel that looking for a strategic partner is increasingly a good idea.
Of course, there is never an ideal time. There is no manual that tells you this is the right time to find a strategic partner. You have to weigh a lot of pros and cons. But once you make the decision, it’s a one-way street for everything to go well, as long as you choose the right partner. Because ultimately, you can make a strategic move at any time, but if you choose the wrong partner, it’s not a matter of time, it’s a matter of choice. And for us, as soon as we felt that GrECo was the right partner, we decided immediately.
What aspects of GrECo‘s operations and values made it the right partner for Comergon?
Zafeiriou: The choice of GrECo as a strategic partner did not come immediately because they were not the first to show interest in our company. We had interest from financial institutions, but they saw the transaction as a financial investment – which didn’t serve us at all. A second type of investor who was interested in us were brokers who would acquire you but let you operate independently. This is an interesting model, but it doesn’t fit with our vision for the future, because the only reason we wanted a strategic partner is to become stronger together.
Still, we wanted to find a true Insurance Broker that was interested in us and shared common principles. In GrECo we found everything we could have dreamed of. We found family owned and operated properties that fit our profile. We found a huge focus on client service, on doing what’s best for your clients, on learning more to help your cleints more. And those are values that are completely invaluable to us.
We also saw at GrECo that we can strengthen ourselves with tremendous resources. GrECo has grown a lot and has internal capabilities that, once we start using them and we already have a taste of them during the initial stages of integration, I think we can become much more competitive for our clients, because in the end all of this means nothing unless we become better for our clients’ needs.
For the end I left the people. We met people who are of exceptional quality, understanding, willing to allow local government to continue its good work, willing to help local government at the highest level possible, and people who we will ultimately enjoy working with and being with.
And you know, we can talk about strategic transactions and corporate worlds, but if at the end of the day the table you sit at after a meeting is not pleasant to the person sitting next to you, it doesn’t mean anything. You have to like your colleague in Austria, you have to like your colleague in Poland, you have to like your colleague in the Czech Republic, and so on. And we have found a family of people with whom we enjoy working and spending time together. And all of that made it impossible to resist.
How Comergon’s long term goals align with GrECo Group strategy?
Why is this corporate transaction important and how do you envision both Comergon and GrECo complementing each other’s existing operations?
Zafeiriou: For Comergon this is the most important transaction there can be. It is very important because in GrECo we have found the ideal strategic partner. We have found a company with a family history, with family values, with ethics and with a passion for client service. But we’ve also found fantastic people to work with, people with open characters, people with open minds, people who allow you to operate independently, of course encouraging you to use and leverage the resources of the team.
Banovac: First of all, I would like to thank you, George, for this comment. I fully share your sentiments from the GrECo side as well. This transaction was important for GrECo because of its entry into the Greek & Cypriot market. We had no presence in Greece & Cyprus and it is a very fortunate circumstance that it was Comergon with whom we had the opportunity to talk seriously.
Because very early on in the negotiations and discussions with Comecon we felt chemistry, we felt that our values matched, we felt a commitment to excellence in client service. But also excellence in service internally, at the process level. So that seemed to be the perfect fit from our perspective. Entering Greece & Cyprus, as one of the most important markets in South East Europe , for us was a big step and we wanted to do this together with Comergon.
We strongly believe that we can offer an additional boost to the domestic insurance market, because we have strong knowledge in specialised sectors that are also present in these markets, providing even stronger and better excellence to Greek & Cypriot clients. And that at the end of the day is what we stand for. We want to have satisfied clients and that is our vision. How fast this will progress, time will tell and the market will prove it, but I am very confident that we will achieve our goals quite quickly.And so I think this can only go very well for us.
And when I say for us, I mean both, Comergon & GrECo.
How will you ensure the smooth integration of the two companies and what steps are being taken to maintain trust between clients?
Banovac: This question can be answered in two directions. The first is internal processes. GrECo has a lot of experience, having carried out more than 30 transactions over the last few years in the integration of companies. So, we bring our expertise to Comergon, which at the end of the day shall enrich the back-office work and the capabilities Comergon have at the moment. We don’t do this without a full understanding of the local team. That’s very, very important to us.
We take our time to explain, discuss, agree and only then integrate. So we’re not in a hurry. That’s element number one. And I think for Comergon’s clients, to maintain their trust in Comergon and its team, the most important thing and message is that the team doesn’t change at all. We’ve been very, very careful and we’ve explored in depth the compatibility of the Comergon team with the GrECo teams. And we are confident and absolutely sure that we have a very good match. This means that Comergon’s clients here in Greece & Cyprus will be dealing with the same people, enjoying the same quality, but with an extra enhanced flavour of specialist knowledge that the GrECo Group can offer.
What measures are in place to support employees during this transition and how do you intend to reassure them?
Banovac: This is a very important question. One of the absolute key questions from our point of view as well, because as I said, we are here for the long term. It’s about growing the company and guiding it into an even stronger future. For that, we need people. We’ve vetted the Comergon team very carefully and with the help of George, the owner of Comergon, we’ve even had the opportunity to talk to the team during the negotiation process over the last few months. And we’ve made a tremendous effort on a personal level to show the people that this is actually a company based on family values, on reliability, on sustainability, and that there’s absolutely nothing to fear.
On the contrary, we are happy and we want to have these people here and we also hope for more in the future. So I think my belief today is that the team feels that because when I come into the Comergon office, I see smiling faces. I am welcomed. And that feeling is absolutely mutual. We are not making acquisitions for cost reduction reasons but we are here with a long-term plan.
Will there be any attempts to change the name after the acquisition?
Zafeiriou: In fact, this shows the open character of our new owners. At some point during the negotiations, we discussed the name and they were very kind to ask us if we would like to keep a combined name for a period of two to three years because they recognize that Comergon has a very strong brand in the Greek insurance market. We had an issue that we couldn’t find a common name that resonated well because GrECo and Comergon share a lot of vowels. We finally decided that we will soon rebrand as GrECo Hellas and GrECo Cyprus and we are very excited about it. We feel it is a very important development for Comergon, which has been in the Greek market for almost 30 years. It is time to open the next chapter with our new names GrECo Hellas and GrECo Cyprus. We are ready!
What are the long-term goals for the combined entity and how do you plan to achieve them?
Zafeiriou: The question of long-term goals is something that ranks high in the discussion we have with our new partner. GrECo is a company that allows local management to operate quite independently, but it is our mission to maintain our good growth story. We’ve grown by about 15% every year for the last four or five years. More than that, actually, five, six years.
We want to continue to do that, to use the tremendous resources that GrECo offers to empower our underwriting teams, our broking teams, to take advantage of highly developed artificial intelligence platforms that GrECo has developed internally. And all of that will make us much more competitive to reach potential clients, to show them what we can offer, to show them how important we can be as their insurance and risk management partners, and to grow with them as trusted partners. In addition, our new owners have encouraged us to look at local acquisitions as well. Of course, as Toni rightly said, we as a group would never buy a company just to grow.
There has to be a match of personalities, a match of ethos, a match of functions. It has to be a corporate broker, of course, because our team is focused on corporate insurance. So that will be a secondary objective that we will have, one that we want to pursue; but of course we have to be very careful about the objectives that we pursue and hopefully there will come a time when we find the ideal candidate, convince them of the great potential of a shared future and move into acquisitions as well.
How will the future of risk management and insurance industry look like?
Banovac: The question about the future of our insurance industry is a difficult one to answer. No one knows what the future will bring. We are seeing geopolitical changes. We are seeing changes in the weather, changes in the climate. Despite all of this, I am absolutely confident that our old values of reliability for our clients and excellence will remain and play a dominant role.
A second point is definitely flexibility. And we as a company are flexible together, Comergon and GrECo, because we have a flat hierarchy and we believe, trust and empower our people. That means that we are flexible in every geographic area where we are and also at the heart of our Group. The third element is technological developments, which we have to keep up with. So you can see the emergence of artificial intelligence, probably the most powerful development the world has ever seen so far. We have to embrace new technologies and use them to our clients’ advantage.
We are already working and using AI in our day-to-day operations, especially on the back-end side, managing policies, facilitating processes for our clients, improving and refining the quality that we offer to our clients. These are our three pillars: Keeping up to date with technological developments, remaining agile in the face of adverse changes that may occur in the world, and at the same time adhering to the values we have always upheld. These are what I believe will make a company successful in the future for its clients.
About Comergon
Comergon is one of the largest independent corporate insurance brokers in Greece, specializing in property & casualty, employee benefits, and risk management consulting. With a strong emphasis on client service and maintaining high client retention rates, Comergon has built a reputation for delivering high-quality services backed by strong technology. Founded in 1971 by Dimitris & Ketty Zafiriou the company has demonstrated strong organic growth, with doubling the turnover from 2019 to 2 million EUR in 2024.
Petra Steininger
Head of Group Communications
T +43 664 548 55 58
