disintegrate of Southport Lane’s coverage Empire

An insurance empire that included two coverage vendors,  offshore reinsurers, several buildings and other insurers’ investments became constructed through a personal fairness company in element on questionable property and is now being dismantled, in line with the Wall avenue journal.

And the disintegrate of the Southport Lane coverage empire is elevating questions about law of the waft of recent cash into the coverage commercial enterprise.

In a March 20 article, “younger Financier’s coverage Empire Collapses,” The Wall street magazine exposed the dealings of Alexander Chatfield Burns, a 28-yr-vintage who founded private equity company Southport Lane control LLC in 2010.

in spite of having no insurance revel in, Burns obtained country regulatory approvals to buy coverage providers inclusive of employees’ repayment writer Dallas national in Texas and personal strains creator  Imperial hearth & Casualty in Louisiana. Dallas country wide (which Southport transferred to Delaware and renamed Freestone) is now in liquidation in Delaware; Imperial become seized and sold with the aid of Louisiana regulators.

in step with the Wall road journal, losses from the insurers are at $250 million, with a few insurers still protecting “tens of tens of millions of dollars in different questionable property.”

Southport Lane additionally acquired Redwood Reinsurance, a Cayman Islands-based totally reinsurer. ultimate April it pronounced it changed into promoting its reinsurance enterprise, Southport Re, to Lennox Investments.

Filings in Delaware Chancery court docket allege that Burns switched millions in shares and bonds from the groups into a non-public account and replaced the ones investments with non-publicly traded or valueless property, including a Caravaggio portray of unsure authenticity, in step with newshounds Mark Maremont and Leslie Scism.

The Wall road magazine said Burns, thru his attorneys, has denied any wrongdoing or breaking of any laws. He also says he in no way in my opinion benefited financially from Southport’s transactions other than his regular repayment.

the primary magazine article, “younger Financier’s coverage Empire Collapses,” gives history on young Burns’ non-public upbringing and prosperous life-style, his economic dealings, fraud investigations into his groups and his relations with politicians and regulators.

The Wall road journal suggested that approximately a yr in the past Burns checked right into a intellectual fitness unit at Bellevue health facility in long island and resigned from Southport Lane, and that he later moved to South Carolina.

A partner magazine article on March 23, “Regulators neglected hazard to block bad deals,” raises questions on the performance of kingdom regulators within the case and whether states are ready to regulate the flow of hedge fund and personal fairness monies flowing into the coverage business.

The journal fees Louisiana coverage Commissioner Jim Donelon as announcing his corporation “allow it’s shield down” in 2013 in approving Southport’s purchase of Imperial, which his corporation seized and offered a year later.