Syncora Holdings Ltd. Announces Four New Appointments to its Board of Directors
November 20 2008 - 3:30PM
PR Newswire (US)
HAMILTON, Bermuda, Nov. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Syncora
Holdings Ltd. ("Syncora" or the "Company") (NYSE:SCA) today
announced the appointment of Mssrs. Duncan P. Hennes, Edward J.
Muhl, Thomas S. Norsworthy, and Robert J. White to its Board of
Directors in connection with the transfer on November 18, 2008 of
30,069,049 Syncora shares, previously owned by XL Capital Ltd, to a
Trust pursuant to the Master Commutation Release and Restructuring
Agreement, dated July 28, 2008. The shares are being held in the
Trust for the benefit of Syncora Guarantee Inc. ("Syncora
Guarantee") until such time as an agreement between Syncora
Guarantee and a consortium of Syncora Guarantee's credit default
swap and financial guarantee counterparties (the "Financial
Counterparties") is reached and thereafter the shares will be held
for the benefit of the Financial Counterparties, or as otherwise
provided in the Deed of Trust. "The new appointees bring a wealth
of restructuring, insurance regulatory and reinsurance expertise to
our Board of Directors. Their collective expertise and insights
will be extremely valuable as we continue our negotiations with the
financial counterparties and execute the next phase of our
restructuring," said Susan Comparato, Acting Chief Executive
Officer and General Counsel of Syncora. The Director appointments
were agreed upon by Syncora and the bank consortium and all four
are independent Directors. Mssrs. Hennes and Muhl are Class I
Directors and members of the Finance and Risk Oversight Committee.
Mr. Norsworthy is a Class II Director and member of the
Compensation Committee. Mr. White is a Class III Director and a
member of the Audit Committee. With these appointments, Syncora's
Board of Directors will have nine members. Duncan P. Hennes, 52,
has nearly 30 years of financial services management experience. He
is currently a co-founder and partner of Atrevida Partners, an
alternative asset manager. Prior to founding Atrevida Partners,
Hennes was a co-founder and partner of Promontory Financial Group.
He is the former Chief Executive Officer of Soros Fund Management.
Earlier in his career, Hennes spent 12 years at Bankers Trust
Company. While at Bankers Trust, he was Chairman of the Board of
Oversight Partners I, the consortium that took control of Long Term
Capital Management. Hennes has a B.S., summa cum laude, and M.B.A.
with Distinction from the Wharton School at the University of
Pennsylvania. Edward J. Muhl, 63, is currently the owner and chief
executive of an insurance, reinsurance and legislative consulting
firm. He has over 40 years of experience in the insurance industry
in both the private and public sector. He has served in a
regulatory capacity in two states, as Commissioner of Insurance for
the State of Maryland and as Superintendent of Insurance for the
State of New York, and has also held the position of President of
the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Mr. Muhl is a
former Partner and National Leader of PricewaterhouseCoopers
Insurance Regulatory and Compliance Practice and has extensive
experience as a board member of insurance companies, currently
serving on the Board of Directors of Farm Family Insurance Company,
Columbian Financial Group, UNUM Insurance Group and Arrowpoint
Capital Insurance Group. Thomas S. Norsworthy, 55, was most
recently the Chief Executive Officer of Trenwick America
Reinsurance Corporation and The Insurance Corporation of New York,
a property-casualty reinsurer and insurer, respectively, currently
in run-off. Norsworthy has more than 30 years of accounting,
actuarial, finance and treasury experience. He was the co-founder
of Kenning Financial Advisors, a consulting and advisory group
focused on the insurance industry. Prior to Kenning, Norsworthy was
the Chief Financial Officer at Swiss Re Capital Partners, the Swiss
Re division responsible for the company's strategic equity
investments and private equity relationships. He has also served as
Chief Financial Officer of The Resolution Group Inc., a
property-casualty insurance group, and its principal subsidiary,
International Insurance Company. Earlier in his career, Norsworthy
worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers. Robert J. White, 61, is a
leading reorganization and restructuring attorney with over 35
years of experience. He has recently completed his appointment as
Receiver in Charge of the Cosmopolitan Resort and Casino in Las
Vegas, Nevada. White had a 35-year career at O'Melveny & Meyers
where he was the founder of the firm's Restructuring and
Reorganization practice. He has represented creditors in such major
restructurings and bankruptcies as WorldCom, Covanta, and Pacific
Crossing, as well as banks in Adelphia's Chapter 11 exit financing
and debtors in At Home Inc., Phar-Mor and MegaFoods in their
bankruptcies. White has been involved with numerous other out-of-
court restructurings and bankruptcies representing debtors,
creditors, equity holders and purchasers of assets. He currently
sits on the Board of Directors of ImageDocUSA and the American
Cancer Society. He holds a B.S. in Accounting from the University
of Illinois and J.D., summa cum laude, from the University of
Michigan. About Syncora Holdings Ltd. Syncora Holdings Ltd. is a
Bermuda-domiciled holding company whose common shares are listed on
the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:SCA). Syncora Holdings Ltd. was
formerly known as Security Capital Assurance Ltd. For more
information, please visit http://www.syncora.com/. Investors and
Media Contact: Michael Gormley +1 441-279-7450 FORWARD-LOOKING
STATEMENTS This release contains statements about future results,
plans and events that may constitute "forward-looking" statements
within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You are cautioned that
these statements are not guarantees of future results, plans or
events and such statements involve risks and uncertainties that may
cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in
these statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to a
number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the
Company's control. These factors include, but are not limited to:
our ability to continue as a going concern; higher risk of loss in
connection with obligations guaranteed by the Company due to
deterioration in the credit markets stemming from the poor
performance of subprime residential mortgage loans; the outcome of
our negotiations with the bank counterparties concerning the
commutation, termination, amendment or otherwise restructuring of
their credit default swap ("CDS") contracts and the expiration of
their forbearance; Syncora Guarantee's ability to maintain minimum
required policyholders' surplus or positive policyholders' surplus;
the decision by our regulators to take regulatory action with
respect to the Company's operating subsidiaries at any time; the
availability of capital and liquidity, including risks associated
with the Master Transaction Agreement and related transactions and
agreements with the New York Insurance Department; developments in
the world's financial and capital markets that adversely affect the
performance of the Company's investments and its access to such
markets; changes in regulation, tax laws, legislation or accounting
policies or practices; delisting from the New York Stock Exchange;
limitations on our net operating carry forwards; payment of
terminations values under CDS contracts; non-payment of premium and
make whole payments by policy holders and counterparties; challenge
to the Master Transaction Agreement and related commutations and
releases; impact of non- payment of dividends on the Company's
Series A Preferences shares on the Company's Board of Directors;
the outcome of the efforts to refund Jefferson County, Alabama's
outstanding sewer system debt and the outcome of related
litigation; the performance of invested assets, losses on credit
derivatives or changes in the fair value of CDS contracts, losses
on the shares of XL Capital Ltd.; recent and future rating agency
statements and ratings actions; the suspension of writing
substantially all new business and the Company's ability to
continue to operate its business in its historic form; the outcome
of litigation; the timing of claims payments and the receipt of
reinsurance recoverables; greater frequency or severity of claims
and loss activity including in excess of the Company's loss
reserves; our assumptions concerning the tax treatment of the
transactions contemplated by the Master Transaction Agreement and
related agreements and related transactions; the impact of
provisions in business arrangements and agreements triggered by the
ratings downgrades; the impact of other triggers in business
arrangements including CDS contracts; changes in officers and key
employees; general economic conditions; changes in the
availability, cost or quality of reinsurance or retrocessions;
possible downgrade of the Company's reinsurers; possible default by
the counterparties to the Company's reinsurance arrangements; the
Company's ability to compete; changes that may occur in Company
operations and ownership as the Company matures; and other
additional factors, risks or uncertainties described in Company
filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in
the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended
December 31, 2007, and also disclosed from time to time in
subsequent reports on Form 10-Q and Form 8-K. Readers are cautioned
not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements which
speak only as of the date they are made. The Company does not
undertake to update forward-looking statements to reflect the
impact of circumstances or events that arise after the date the
forward-looking statements are made. DATASOURCE: Syncora Holdings
Ltd. CONTACT: Investors and media, Michael Gormley, Syncora
Holdings Ltd., +1 441-279-7450, Web site: http://www.syncora.com/
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