Tony Ondrusek, Publisher

It just makes sense that Hilb Rogal & Hobbs (HRH) will close its Richmond, Va., headquarters and join its soon-to-be parent firm, Willis Holdings, at Willis’ swank new digs in New York City, pending approval of its recently announced acquisition by the London-based brokerage.

HRH has slightly more than 75 employees at its Richmond HQ (its local retail shop employs about 150), and Willis houses about 600 in the 200,000+ s.f. offices that it moved into about two years ago, which serves as the base for its U.S. operations. There will likely be much redundancy in the administrative, accounting, HR and marketing functions, so why would Willis continue with two HQ’s hundreds of miles apart, with one being far outside the Wall Street environs that Willis enjoys?

And while Willis might offer some HRH staff the option to move and work in New York City, some might speculate that not all will relish the move from a more genteel location to the hyper-speed pace of The Big Apple.

In some locations where Willis and HRH each have a presence, such as in Baltimore where the offices are literally across the street from each other, one could further speculate that those offices will also eventually share the same address; after all, by the end of the year they will share the same name, Willis HRH.

And while there is talk of each bringing something different to the table — Willis is obviously a leader in large case markets, and HRH brings middle-market and employee benefits expertise — the stark reality is that the HRH culture and way of doing business will disappear.

One dictionary defines consolidation as “uniting,” while its secondary meaning is to “discard unwanted items.” Which one applies to this, the largest brokerage merger in the past decade?