BOYNTON BEACH, Fla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Peach Holdings, Inc. (“Peachtree”) announces the appointment of Hasham J. Malik as Senior Vice President & Chief Capital Markets Officer. Mr. Malik joins Peachtree from Bear Stearns & Co., Inc. where he was Managing Director and co-head of the life settlements trading business. During his 14-year career in structured finance investment banking he has also held key positions at Deutsche Bank Securities and State Street Capital Corporation. Mr. Malik will be heading up the Peachtree Capital Markets team.

Mr. Malik earned his Bachelor’s degree in finance from Boston College and his MBA from the Yale University School of Management.

Commenting on the appointment, Jim Terlizzi, Peachtree’s CEO said: “We are delighted
that Hasham has agreed to join Peachtree. He is going to play a key role in Peachtree’s future success and brings a pivotal set of skills to the table.”

Hasham Malik said: “Peachtree’s depth in structured settlements and life settlements makes it the strongest and best positioned player in the market, and I am excited to be a part of the Company’s growth. I look forward to building the Peachtree Capital Markets team.”

About Peachtree

Peach Holdings, Inc., a Florida corporation, is the parent (holding) company of the Peach group of companies, including, among others, Peachtree Settlement Funding, Peachtree Pre-Settlement Funding and Peachtree LBP Finance Company (together, “Peachtree”). Peachtree is a specialty factoring company that purchases high-quality deferred payment obligations. Through its group of affiliated companies, Peachtree caters to people seeking to sell structured legal settlements, annuity payments, lottery prize payments, sweepstakes awards and sports contract payments. In addition, Peachtree provides cash advances to people with pending personal injury claims. Peachtree has purchased over $4 billion of specialty receivables and continues to expand into new areas by bringing institutional financing and professionalism to bear on underserved markets.

Source: Market Wire

Related Life Settlement Sites:
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ORLANDO, FL–(Marketwire – July 19, 2007) – The Life Insurance Settlement Association (LISA) today renewed its objections to the recent amendments to the NAIC Viatical Settlement Model Act, after it was revealed that both the primary author of the model and its key supporter, the American Council of Life Insurance (ACLI), knew that the model act failed to address the problem of stranger originated life insurance (STOLI). LISA has repeatedly raised concerns about the highly unorthodox process and closed-door tactics which were used to develop and adopt the amendments and has held firm that the model does not stop what the NAIC has already identified as the improper manufacturing of life insurance.

According to the minutes of a meeting between the ACLI and North Dakota Insurance
Commissioner Jim Poolman, who as chair of the NAIC’s Life Insurance and Annuities (A) Committee and a member of the NAIC Executive Committee, authored and shepherded
NAIC passage of the recent amendments to its Model Act, insurers complained that Commissioner Poolman’s amendments did not stop STOLI because they did not prohibit
“finance programs permitting investor participation prior to or at issuance” of a policy where the consumer only “derives some modest percentage of the death benefit.” Commissioner Poolman, according to the minutes, defended the very company whose practices triggered his committee’s June 2005 NAIC resolution condemning that company’s business practices as against public policy. The minutes indicate that, to
back up his new support for this company and its practices, he indicated that he would be the only author of amendments. He then threatened the ACLI that they should not alert other members of the committee that his draft contained a loophole benefiting the program that the committee had previously condemned.

The meeting minutes were released in a memorandum issued by Kentucky State Representative Robert Damron at the Summer Meeting of the National Conference of Insurance Legislators (NCOIL). Representative Damron’s memorandum explains that “The
ACLI apparently gave in to Chairman Poolman’s determination to protect the INSCAP (which is known to many by its former corporate name, LILAC) program identified by the ACLI as STOLI, following his threat to retaliate against any lobbying to make the bill’s language meet its purpose. Commissioner Poolman apparently told the ACLI (again according to the attached Memorandum) that ‘he intended to be the architect of whatever the final product of the Committee might be — if any — and that he disapproved of industry efforts to identify leadership on the committee beyond his own.’ He backed this up with a warning that he would kill the bill: ‘the only choice for the industry was to agree to address STOLI settlement schemes now or risk receiving any useful NAIC guidance on STOLI this year.’”

“Why has the NAIC strayed so far from its own policies? Why have life insurers given
up on stopping STOLI?” asked Doug Head, Executive Director of LISA. “Stopping STOLI
means what the ACLI said it means: preventing investor participation in the death benefit prior to or at issuance of the policy where the insured’s chosen beneficiaries only receive a pittance. The ACLI was right when it said that, because the NAIC model ‘failed to address all financing schemes primarily benefiting investors,’ it ‘failed to address the fundamental concerns with STOLI.’”

“The NAIC’s charge to the Life (A) Committee was specifically focused on addressing STOLI. Instead of addressing STOLI, however, Commissioner Poolman strong-armed a
five year ban on life settlements that never made any sense. Now we see that the new model was not drafted in good faith by policymakers whose responsibility is to be impartial. Instead, it gives a free pass to what the ACLI labeled as true STOLI — ‘investor participation prior to or at policy issuance in financing schemes primarily benefiting investors.’”

LISA has repeatedly raised serious substantive and legal concerns regarding the NAIC amendments’ interference with property rights. Noting that, after Commissioner Poolman’s threats, the ACLI dropped its complaints about the model and vigorously supported it despite the proposal’s shortcomings, Head said, “Policymaking should be
done in the open. Members of the Life (A) Committee and other interested parties had a right to know that insurance carriers, who have portrayed themselves as STOLI victims, and who because of their position, know what is happening in the market, told the chair that his bill did not do what it purported to do. Did the other members of the committee realize that the ACLI had warned that the model that the committee members were supporting shielded from any and all regulation precisely the programs that their committee had condemned in June, 2005?”

Head concluded: “The ACLI apparently decided that the five year ban on settlements and many of the draconian, anti-secondary market provisions were better — for them — than nothing. The Model Act amendments certainly impair the legitimate secondary market, which many carriers have publicly admitted harms their lapse-based profits. But the amendments don’t address STOLI. We only wish someone had let us in on the secret, so we could have understood how what was supposed to be an anti-STOLI project instead became an all-out attack on the secondary market.”

Founded in 1994, the Life Insurance Settlement Association is the oldest and largest trade organization in the industry. Its goal is to promote the development, integrity and reputation of the life settlement industry, and to promote a competitive market for the people it serves. LISA now represents 150 members with a wide variety of interests in the industry. For more about the Association, visit www.lisassociation.org.

Contact:
Doug Head
Executive Director
LISA
407-894-3797
Email Contact

Industry Association Supports Life Settlement Bill Introduced in D.C.

ORLANDO, FL–(Marketwire – July 17, 2007) – The Life Insurance Settlement Association announced its strong support today for the recently introduced bill in the District of Columbia City Council to regulate life settlements in that jurisdiction. This legislation, introduced at the request of the D.C. Department of Insurance, Securities, and Banking, comprehensively protects life insurance policyowners by imposing tough licensing requirements on settlement providers and brokers and thorough oversight of interactions with consumers, including an important new set of disclosures and affirmations designed to buttress insurable interest requirements and prevent STOLI (stranger originated life insurance).

“This bill is reflective of the District’s growing reputation as one of the nation’s leading financial services regulators,” said LISA executive director Doug Head. “As secondary market companies continue to be attracted to the region, this landmark legislation will provide the District with the necessary tools to foster competition while protecting consumers.”

Commissioner Thomas E. Hampton has made settlement legislation his top priority in his speeches and other public statements regarding the Department’s agenda. “We commend Commissioner Hampton’s leadership on this issue,” said Head. “His bill applies a thoughtful approach to complicated public policy issues, using the longstanding and tested NCOIL and NAIC models as a platform, and adding important updates in response to recent regulatory concerns regarding STOLI.”

Life insurers have repeatedly and publicly stated that they have used aggressive underwriting to contain the wild speculation in human life that has alarmed policymakers, Head noted. “Nearly a dozen insurance companies have publicly stated or certified to investors and regulators that they have materially stopped STOLI by asking questions at policy inception designed to identify and weed out investor-manufactured transactions. The D.C. Department’s bill would encourage such efforts throughout the market by codifying appropriate disclosures and affirmations designed to bring transparency to both sides of the transaction and to ensure an informed contract.”

“Effective regulators study the market and react accordingly,” Head continued. “That’s what Commissioner Hampton has done here. His bill will directly address STOLI by ensuring that applicants for insurance certify that they have insurable interest, have not pre-arranged a settlement, and have not been improperly induced into renting out their insurance capacity. And this legislation will protect consumers who borrow against the market value of their policies in order to finance the purchase, by ensuring that they understand the possible detriments to them which can result from a change of ownership in the policy to satisfy the debt.”

The D.C. action is very timely, Head noted. “With the National Conference of Insurance Legislators (NCOIL) meeting this week in Seattle, and with a majority of its life settlements subcommittee publicly opposed to the recent NAIC amendments, which impose a five year moratorium on settlements without stopping STOLI, and punishes a consumer’s use of the policy as collateral in a legitimate loan transaction, we think that the D.C. Department’s bill as introduced demonstrates that, as policymakers learn more about STOLI, they better understand how to address the problem.”

Founded in 1994, the Life Insurance Settlement Association is the oldest and largest trade organization in the industry. Its goal is to promote the development, integrity and reputation of the life settlement industry, and to promote a competitive market for the people it serves. LISA now represents 150 members with a wide variety of interests in the industry. For more about the Association, visit www.lisassociation.org.

Source: Marketwire