Three Atlanta-based firms have merged, expanding insurance and financial services for small and medium-sized businesses, with growth plans for 2026.
Partners Risk Services, an independent insurance brokerage in property/casualty, benefits and life products and formerly known as BWT Risk Advisors, has joined with accounting advisory firm Nichols Cauley and with JGH Consulting, a transactions advisory firm, the companies announced this week.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it included a significant investment from Madison Dearborn Partners, a private equity firm based in Chicago.
Alan Whitman, formerly with the Baker Tilly tax and assurance firm, will be CEO of the combined enterprise. Joe Thompson, CEO of Partners Risk Services, will lead risk management and insurance services. Todd Giddens, managing partner of Nichols Cauley, will serve as the COO, according to a news release.
Justice, the former governor of West Virginia and a longtime coal mine company owner and operator, and his family controlled eight companies in Virginia and West Virginia that sought coverage with LM Insurance Corp. through West Virginia’s assigned risk workers’ compensation plan, court filings show.
In 2021, LM canceled one set of policies due to nonpayment of premiums for what it collectively termed the Bluestone companies. An audit determined that the firms still owed almost $1.8 million in premiums, the LM complaint explained.
The employers paid $50,000 in early 2022. LM then asked the federal court in western Virginia for partial summary judgment, mandating that the Justice-family companies pay the remaining premiums owed. The Bluestone defendant companies did not oppose the motion. The judge, Michael Urbanski, agreed last week.
“Accordingly, it is ordered that judgment be entered for plaintiff LM Insurance Corporation in the amount of $1,023,732.88, jointly and severally against defendants Bluestone Resources, Inc., Ranger Fuel Coal Corporation, Blackstone Energy Ltd., Bluestone Coke, LLC, Southeast Cotton, Inc., Bluestone Industries, Inc., Justice Energy Company, Inc., and Kentucky Fuel Corporation,” the judge wrote.