THE insurance market is set for further consolidation. Tomorrow’s purchase of Birch’s general insurance business will be Cherry Godfrey’s fourth such acquisition in just 12 months.

Managing director Dave Cherry is looking to make further acquisitions if the right businesses become available. And he believes the market will continue to see more such purchases in the coming years.

‘As the market develops we will see more consolidation of some of the smaller firms, which, provided the personalised service is maintained, as we intend to do, is a good thing,’ said Mr Cherry.

‘We will maintain that professional and personal service while letting our systems to do the donkey work, which the small companies may not be able to do.’

Guernseyman Mr Cherry has always been involved in consumer finance and real estate.

He met his future wife and business partner, Selena Godfrey, before going to Bristol in 1986 to work for a major US bank. He eventually returned to the island permanently in 1990, continuing to work for the same firm, becoming managing director of the Guernsey branch.

In 1993, with a child aged one and another on the way, he went into business with his wife, setting up Cherry Godfrey. They now have three children: Jacob, 12, who is at Elizabeth College, Tanith, 11, who is at Ladies’ College, and Lydia, 7, who is at La Houguette.

‘It went against all the rules of putting together a business plan and getting the finance in place – it is certainly not something I would advise.

‘But I had decided that that was what I wanted to do and that I needed to make it happen,’ said Mr Cherry.

In 1999 the company moved offices in Barclays Court, South Esplanade, and later that year formed CI Card, a joint venture with GuernseyNet to accept internal credit card payments.

CI Credit Insurance was formed in 2001, Guernsey’s first locally-trading captive insurance company.

Cherry Godfrey also began buying local insurance firms. Over the last 12 months it has bought the Guernsey and then the Jersey branches of De La Rue and Jones Insurance, insurance wholesaler Household Policy Company and now the general insurance business of Birch Insurance.

‘Entering the insurance market suited us because we were obtaining details from our customers that placed us perfectly to find them insurance products as well,’ said Mr Cherry.

‘We wanted a general insurance company like Birch because they tend to be solid businesses with loyal customer bases. It may be less glamorous than investments, but the revenue streams can be built upon, for example, by cross-selling products from the group to the customers as we get to know them.’

On further acquisitions, Mr Cherry said: ‘We are set to concentrate on expanding into Jersey. We think that there are great opportunities in the Channel Islands but we are not as well known in Jersey as in Guernsey.

‘Three years ago, when we decided to sponsor the football and cricket inter-insular matches, we realised that we had to become better known in Jersey and then expand,’ he said.

Cherry Godfrey now has 32 Guernsey-based staff in three offices and seven staff in one Jersey branch.

Mr Cherry said that the Internet now provided 15% of the company’s revenue and that that was a target area for growth, with the aim of having 50% of revenue coming from outside the islands in 10 years’

time.

He said there was a need to exploit the worldwide market where possible, but not to take unnecessary risks in doing so, therefore the products available to people across the globe had to be carefully selected.