Assurant buys Wayne's Signal for $250M

Assurant Inc., a New York specialty insurer, has agreed to pay $250 million for Signal Holdings LLC, a Wayne-based purveyor of wireless handset repair and insurance. Sellers are brothers Tom and Steve Cloetingh, who founded Signal in 1984, and Trident II, an investment fund managed by StonePoint Capital, Greenwich, Conn., which invested in Signal in 2002. 
  Signal employs 150 at its headquarters and call center, plus 330 at a handset repair facility in York. Finance, benefits and other headquarters functions will likely be combined with Assurant over time, but "our objective is to grow this business," said Assurant spokesman James Sykes.
  The two companies have worked closely together since 2000, when Assurant began underwriting Signal's insurance policies. "We're putting together a service plan" that will be easier to sell than insurance policies, since they won't need agents to sell them, said Sykes.
  UPDATE: The Cloetinghs grew up in Cherry Hill, then moved to the Main Line, where Tom went to Lower Merion High School (later George Washington U and a Drexel MBA), and Steve to Episcopal Academy (then Gettysburg College). Inquirer story here.