Boca Raton Imperial Holdings stock drops 60% after FBI raid on headquarters

September 30th, 2011

In the hours before investors learned that Imperial Holdings was the target of a federal investigation, investors made a large number of bets that the company’s stock would plunge.

Volume for puts to sell shares – a bet that the stock price would fall – totaled 1,948 on Tuesday. That was 85 times the daily average since the options were listed on exchanges in February, Bloomberg News reports today.

Call volume was 35 times the normal activity. The most active options were October $5 puts, which accounted for more than half of all volume. Those contracts, which had never traded before that day, changed hands in blocks as large as 80, Bloomberg reported.

The options trading began at 11:25 a.m. Tuesday, Bloomberg said. The New York Stock Exchange halted trading of Imperial Holding (NYSE: IFT) at 1:42 p.m.

Investors learned that FBI agents had raided the company’s Boca headquarters at 2:26 p.m., when The Palm Beach Post reported the raid.

The spike in options activity raised eyebrows.

“This feels like a trade with prior knowledge of a news event, or extraordinarily good timing,” Ophir Gottlieb, managing director of client services at San Francisco-based Livevol Inc., told Bloomberg.

Imperial is a specialty finance firm that finances insurance premiums, buys life insurance policies from policyholders and buys structured settlements from plaintiffs in lawsuits.

Chief Executive Antony Mitchell, 45, and Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Neuman, 38, are among the Imperial Holdings employees “under investigation in the District of New Hampshire” in connection with the company’s life-finance business, the company said in a statement.

Imperial Holdings shares fell 65 percent Wednesday and have jumped 23 percent today.

FBI, police raid Boca Raton Imperial Holdings

September 30th, 2011

FBI agents and Boca Raton police closed the offices of finance firm Imperial Holdings on Tuesday as they executed a search warrant.

On Tuesday afternoon, an empty U-Haul truck was backed up to the entrance of the company’s headquarters at 701 Park of Commerce Blvd., apparently ready to be filled with documents.

An FBI agent at the scene said the search warrant came from the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Hampshire, which declined to comment. Imperial Holdings President Jonathan Neuman also declined to comment.

One person who spoke to an Imperial Holdings employee said workers were sent home while the FBI gathered documents.

It’s unclear what agents were looking for or what the raid means for shareholders of Imperial Holdings (NYSE: IFT, $6.30), but the New York Stock Exchange halted trading Tuesday afternoon. Shares in the Boca Raton-based company have fallen 41 percent since it went public in February.

Imperial Holdings lends money to policyholders to pay life insurance premiums. It also buys so-called structured settlements, awarded to plaintiffs in lawsuits who want to trade future payments for cash now.

The company reported a loss of $15.7 million in 2010 and lost money in 2008 and 2009. Imperial Holdings had 131 employees as of Dec. 31.

What to Do When You Need Advance Cash Settlements

April 11th, 2011

Need Advance Cash Fast? Get A Lump Sum Payment on Your Structured Settlement

Throughout the course of one’s life, it is always beneficial to have money. However, the exact form in which it is ideally received is by no means always the same. No two people have the exact same financial needs, and as such no two payment packages should be approached in the same way. We at RSL Funding are with you today in order to discuss the benefits of one particular type of payment package, the lump sum.

Are you currently holding on to what is known as a structured settlement, otherwise known as a series of periodic payments? Do you need money ‘pronto’ without the risk and failure associated with various get-rich-quick schemes? Then RSL Funding is glad to offer you a pair of things on this fine day: a solution to your financial troubles as well as a dependable channel through which you will get the payment you rightly deserve.

There is a time and place for just about anything imaginable in this world. As such, there is a time and place when the consistency associated with structured settlements is right for you. However, perhaps now isn’t the time. Perhaps you really need to make a rent payment, or desperately need to buy that engagement ring before the wedding starts. You might possibly need to place an extension on your house, or even make tuition payments for the sake of your children. The common thread in all of these scenarios is that someone can’t afford to wait for money. If that someone is you, rest assured that RSL Funding is prepared to give you the best possible rate on any structured settlement payments you may possess. After all, we know that quantity is relevant, and that you can’t put a piece of your child in school or part of a ring on someone’s finger.

If you believe that there is no productive way to use the capital from selling a structured settlement right now, think again. There are as many ways to use money in this world as there are stars in the sky – surely many among this boundless expanse of options are viable to you. Maybe you want to meet halfway and utilize some of your money now and hold some in advance for a rainy day. Then, a settlement advance may be right for you. Or, you may simply want the liquidity of being able to use whatever funds are necessary for a given situation before one arises. That’s a perfectly valid reason to consider selling your settlements – remember, you’ll be conserving as much money as possible by dealing with us, unlike certain competitors which we will not name.

What if nothing dire is going on in your life right now, but you wish to draw upon some of your resources by selling some structured settlement payments? That’s just fine, we won’t judge – the money in a structured settlement is as much yours as that contained in a paycheck. A vacation paid by either form of finance will be just as sweet, after all. But you may ask: “But, won’t I receive less money today than I would in the long run by forsaking my structured settlement?” Not necessarily. What may be the principal disadvantage of structured settlements is that they do not accrue interest. What does this mean for the holder of such a settlement?

For one thing, the money you have agreed to receive periodically will not – on paper – increase at all. $5000 dollars in your structured settlement one year will remain $5000 the next. In sharp contrast, if that same $5000 were to be in your direct possession, you could place it in a bank and collect interest payments; the amount of money you would then have in say, a year would be its future time value. If you’re a patient individual and want to receive more money in the long run, holding on to a structured settlement payment may not be the best way to go. In this way, you could end up with more money today and tomorrow by parting with a structured settlement. Interested yet? So are we at RSL Funding.