Willis Chairman and CEO Joe Plumeri lost his majority shareholder last week – and he probably couldn’t be more happy about it. The ownership of Willis will now be held by a greater variety of investors after New York-based takeover specialist Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co sold most of its holdings in the group.

KKR brought in Mr Plumeri and nursed the Willis Group back to health after taking it in a leveraged buyout in 1998. Its stock offering last week – apart from generating hundreds of millions of dollars in profits – has sharply reduced its ownership in Willis Group Holdings.

London-based Willis said KKR sold 20 million shares of Willis common stock last week, bringing KKR’s ownership of Willis down to 7.5% from 23%. KKR originally obtained 74.3% of the broker.

Willis is buying 4 million shares directly from the selling shareholders in a private transaction valued at about $180 million.