HAMILTON, Bermuda, Oct. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Syncora Holdings Ltd. ("SHL" or the "Company") today announced the appointment of four new Independent Directors. Messrs William M. Fitzgerald and Robert W. Shippee will join the Board of Syncora Holdings Ltd. as well as the Boards of the Company's financial guarantee insurance subsidiaries, Syncora Guarantee Inc. ("SGI") and Syncora Capital Assurance Inc. ("SCAI"). Messrs James M. Gallagher and Frank C. Puleo will join the Board of SCAI. Commenting on the appointments, SHL's Chairman, Mike Esposito, said: "I am delighted that these four individuals have agreed to serve on the Syncora Boards. Their wealth of risk management, restructuring and credit experience and expertise will be extremely valuable to the Company as it completes the remaining elements of its comprehensive restructuring and implements an operational business plan to support the Company's ongoing obligations."
Mr. Fitzgerald will be a Class I director and will serve on the Company's Audit and Finance & Risk Oversight Committees. Mr. Shippee will be a Class II director and will serve on the Company's Finance & Risk Oversight Committee. Directors who serve solely on the Board of SCAI will have observer status on the SHL and SGI Boards. Mr. Gallagher will serve as SCAI's representative on the Company's Audit and Finance & Risk Oversight Committees and Mr. Puleo will serve as SCAI's representative on the Company's Audit and Nominating & Governance Committees.
The four appointments were made pursuant to the master transaction agreement between SGI and certain financial counterparties to SGI's credit default swap and financial guarantee policies. Following the appointments, the Boards of both SHL and SGI will have nine members and the Board of SCAI will have thirteen members.
Mr. Fitzgerald (45) is the founder of Global Infrastructure LLC. Prior to this, he was a Managing Director of Nuveen Investments LLC and the Chief Investment Officer of Nuveen Asset Management, a wholly owned affiliate of Nuveen Investments. He has an M.B.A. in finance from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.
Mr. Shippee (60) has over thirty-five years of banking and risk management experience. He is currently a risk consultant for Straumur Investment Bank. From 2001 to 2007, he held senior credit risk management positions in New York and London for Bank of America, and for the prior thirty years held numerous credit and business executive positions in New York, London, Tokyo, and Hong Kong for J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Mr. Shippee has a degree in economics from Brown University and has edited several books on finance, history, and numismatics.
Mr. Gallagher (63) is founder and managing director of Pine Brook Associates LLC, a crisis management and financial consulting company focusing on creditor and litigation trust trusteeships and federal and state court receiverships. During a thirty-year career, he has held senior risk management and restructuring positions at NatWest Bank N.A., Dresdner Bank AG and Morris-Anderson & Associates Ltd. Mr. Gallagher has a B.A. cum laude in history and economics from Fordham University, a J.D. with concentration in taxation and labor relations from St. John's University School of Law and an M.B.A. in finance and accounting from Columbia University Graduate School of Business.
Mr. Puleo (63) currently serves as Director of Apollo Investment Company, Commercial Industrial Finance Corp., Capital Markets Engineering & Trading Holdings, LLC and SLM Corp. Mr. Puleo was for 29 years a partner at Millbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP where his practice focused on clients in the financial services industry. He held the position of Co-Chair of the firm's Global Finance Group and was a member of its Executive Committee. Mr. Puleo has a B.S.E. degree from Princeton and a J.D. from the New York University School of Law.
About Syncora Holdings Ltd.
Syncora Holdings Ltd. (OTC: SYCRF) is a Bermuda-domiciled holding company. Syncora Guarantee Inc. and Syncora Capital Assurance Inc. are wholly owned subsidiaries of Syncora Holdings Ltd. For more information, please visit www.syncora.com.
Investor and media contact:
Michael Corbally
+1 212-478-3400
SOURCE Syncora Holdings Ltd.
