Genstar Capital, the West Coast middle market private equity firm, acquired Granite Global Solutions, a Canadian insurance services firm. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Granite Global Solutions was formerly owned by Granite Partners LP, a Canadian private equity firm.

The deal isn’t Genstar’s first investment in the space; in the US, the PE firm also acquired and is developing Confie Seguros, a consolidated insurance brokerage services focused on Hispanic customers on East and West Coast states.  

J. Ryan Clark, a principal with Genstar, said the PE firm will look to “identify strategic add-on investments” in Canada for its latest investment.

Genstar received legal counsel from Latham & Watkins and Ogilvy Renault. Financing was provided by National Bank Financial and Toronto-Dominion Bank. Stikeman Elliott acted as legal advisor to Granite and Collins Barrow Toronto provided accounting and tax structure advice.

Calls seeking comment were not acknowledged by press time.

Genstar’s prior investment into Canada was its deal to buy Voice Construction, an oilfield services company based in Edmonton.

The PE firm also bought West Coast Auto Insurance Services to tuck into its Confie Seguros investment in 2008.

Private equity firms have gotten into the financial services niche spaces, notably insurance and pay processing. Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe acquired a majority interest of GlobalCollect earlier this year. Other PE investors to access the space include Navigation Capital, Parthenon Capital Partners, Aquiline Capital Partners and Nautic Partners. In the insurance space, GTCR’s 2009 commitment of $200 million to specialty insurer Ironshore Inc. and Marsh & McLennan’s consolidation play on a Texan company have served as recent consolidation opportunities.

Financial services industry