Why wholesale broker Ed is upbeat on LatAm

London-based broker Ed is looking to double in size after rebranding last year and deciding to focus on wholesale.

As part of this global growth push the company, formerly known as Cooper Gay, has appointed two senior executives to lead the charge in Latin America, where it expects an improvement in the overall economy of the region to translate into increased business opportunities.

The IMF forecasts the region's economy will resume growth this year after contracting 1% in 2016.

"You're seeing once again an emerging, an aspirant, middle class," Ed CEO Steve Hearn told BNamericas. "You're seeing local industry and regional industry develop and outpace growth in other parts of the world. We want to be part of that. We see opportunity."

And despite political unrest in Brazil, the company is generally upbeat on the prospects that the region's biggest economy offers.

Hearn said: "Key, really, to the region, certainly in an insurance context, is the dominant Brazilian economy and what does or doesn't happen there. But that seems to be making some progress, subject to a few clear issues around political instability and corruption. But the core economy, if one looks at it, there is opportunity there."

Ed is today a wholesaler and works with local brokers to provide access to both the London and global markets.

"Retail brokers locally have the customer, they understand the language, they're embedded into the economic and cultural environment in which they sit and we get an opportunity to partner with them," Hearn said.

The company - named after Edward Lloyd, who in the late 1600s opened a London coffee house where the Lloyds List was later founded - aims to double its revenue in three years and is hiring new professionals as part of its strategy. Hearn did not rule out the possibility of M&A activity to increase its operations.