Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Mark Hughes - SunTrust.
Mark Hughes - SunTrust
Any change in the commission rate that you are earning over the last three to six months?
J. Patrick Gallagher Jr.
This is Pat. I don’t have the stats in front of me. Anecdotally, I would tell you that our people are paid on a commission basis, and they’re paid to do as well as they can the underwriting desk, but in terms of upfront changes in the rate of commission by the insurance companies, very little.
Mark Hughes - SunTrust
How big is the U.K. portion of the brokerage business at this point roughly?
J. Patrick Gallagher Jr.
Just over $100 million in revenue.
Mark Hughes - SunTrust
As you look at your client base, how are they doing in the volatile economy, sort of the middle market customers doing as good, a little bit worst than what we might see in the broader economy?
J. Patrick Gallagher Jr.
Mark, I meet a lot with clients and they laugh at the green shoot discussions. Some of the transportation clients think that maybe in the first quarter they’ll see some increase, but by enlarge our clients are really suffering. I mean sales are down, and again this is all anecdotal discussions of just meeting with client, but you take just those electrical contractors that did housing developments and things like that.
We have customers that did $6 million, $7 million, and $10 million in revenue a year ago, that are going to do $2 million this year. Their businesses are down in the order of 3%, 4%, 5%, these businesses are down 50%, 60%. We’re very large in Florida, and if you take a look at our customer base in Florida, you’ve almost an 11% unemployment rate. Commercial real estate down there, which is a big part what we do, is collapsed.
In downtown my EMEA alone, theirs is 6500 of our public entity business in Florida is a very large part of what we do. They’re literally in a crisis mode when it comes to budget. The other business that we are very large and of course it’s religious and not for profit, and contributions are down and that of course we’re large in construction so I could keep going through our niches like that and every niche I look I don’t see one that’s robust at all and I don’t see any that are planning on robust recovery in 2010 I’ll tell you that.
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