All content of David Marchant

Mid-Ocean Trust Company Ltd. is winding down its operations just over 12 months after setting up in Hamilton following disappointing levels of business from its main market, Canada.

Tony Joaquin, 40, has become the new president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bermuda and one of his first tasks will be to persuade government to change a tax burden that could potentially decimate ICAB's membership.

British insurance salesman Andrew Morris, 29, of Manchester, England, has been sentenced to serve four months in prison in Bermuda after pleading guilty to credit fraud. He will be deported once his sentence ends.

Bermuda-based property catastrophe reinsurer Renaissance Re is going ahead with a $50 million initial public offering of its shares, 18 months after canceling an IPO of more than $100 million due to a decline in the world investment climate.Renaissance Re. will offer 2.7 million shares, which represents ten per cent of the company's capital.

Bermuda Container Line has reported a profit of $2.3 million for fiscal 1994 - a vast improvement on the profit of $100,302 the year before and combined losses of $3.37 million in 1991 and 1992.

Briton William A. Woods has been cleared by immigration to become the first chief executive officer of the rapidly-developing Bermuda Stock Exchange. The Exchange has also announced that Greg Wojciechowski, until now the Exchange's sole employee, has been promoted from project manager to chief operating officer.

Investment firm Lines Overseas Management may be about to expand into the Cayman Islands.

Anyone who believes the Japanese yen is overvalued against the U.S. dollar should take a look at a new mutual fund brought out by Jardine Fleming, one of the world's leading fund management companies, with a particularly strong presence in the Far East.

A lawsuit brought by the husband of a woman who drowned in a diving accident against dive boat operator Michael Heslop has been set down for trial on October 16 at Bermuda Supreme Court.Peter Frymann, who lost his wife Eileen in the 1992 accident, is seeking undisclosed damages from Mr. Heslop, claiming he was negligent in running his business, Fantasea Diving. Mr. Heslop claims the incident was an accident that could not have been prevented.

Fourways Inn founder Walter Sommer, who died on February 1, left behind debts of between $8 million and $10 million in Washington, D.C., said a creditor.The extent of Mr. Sommer's debts was revealed by the Founding Church of Scientology, which bought a Washington restaurant property from Mr. Sommer several years ago in order to build a church on the site.

Jardine Matheson has given a massive boost to the Bermuda Stock Exchange by disclosing that it plans to list all five of its locally-registered holding companies on the BSE.

Andrew Morris, 29, has been charged with failing to pay an $8,000 bill at Elbow Beach Hotel, where he had been staying for two weeks. He denies the offence.

Joe Taussig, the founding managing director of investment First Bermuda Securities, has left the company to form his own international business.

Alan Marlow, former general manager of the St. George's Club, is suing the timeshare complex's new owner for $56,000 after being fired.

Bermuda Financial Centre Ltd has suffered a major setback with the announcement that the planned major tenant for the office portion of the $150 million project - Centre Reinsurance - may move to a new site being planned by Pearman Watlington.The latest piece of bad news for BFCL, which hopes to develop the site of the former Bermudiana Hotel, came yesterday when PWs announced it had submitted plans to build a retail/office/residential complex at the company's WaterFront site on Pitts Bay Road.

 Marriott's Castle Harbour Resort has come up with a $65 million refurbishment plan in a bid to stem heavy losses by attracting more guests, particularly golfers, during the winter months.

Government's immigration department has turned down a request for a work permit for David Parreira to manage Top Turf Enterprises bookmaker, which is struggling to regain its gaming licence in the face of opposition from the Ministry of Finance and police.

Lawyer Graham Collis has been criticised by an American attorney for "a lack of co-operation" in the investigation of two U.S. businessmen accused of defrauding investors of millions of dollars.U.S. investigators into the failed New Jersey-based Sigma commodities group believe that "tens of millions" of dollars of funds were transferred out of the company to bank accounts in London and Bermuda shortly before it collapsed.Attorney William Horton, acting for the U.S. court-appointed receiver of the Sigma Group, which includes Bermuda-registered BTB Group Ltd, said he was "disgusted" at the lack of help given to the receiver by Mr. Collis, of Conyers Dill & Pearman, who represents BTB Group on the island.

Bermuda-based Hopewell International Insurance Ltd has been awarded $1 million against North American Fidelity & Guarantee, a reinsurance company that was kicked out of Bermuda by government for failing to prove it had the $100 million of assets the firm claimed it had.

Trout Trading Fund, a massive mutual fund group catering to high net worth individuals, has been criticized by Chief Justice Austin Ward for preventing a member of the public from exercising his legal right to view its register of shareholders. But Mr. Ward cannot take action against the Bermuda-based company because, after a legal action was brought against the firm in an effort to force it to open up its share register, a Private Members' Bill was passed a month later in the House of Assembly, exempting Trout Trading from the provisions of The Companies Act 1981 that allows the public access to its register.

Lawyer Max Quin has teamed up with Global Asset Management to form Harbour International Trust Company (Bermuda) Ltd - the latest exempted company to be granted a trust licence by government.GAM owns the majority of shares in the trust company, with minority stakes held by Mr. Quin and portfolio management group Soditic Partners Ltd.

Law firm Hallett Whitney & Patton, who were the legal advisers to the failed Telecheck savings and credit card group, is being sued for $595,000 by Telecheck's liquidator, Ernst & Young.John Cooper, a partner in HW&P, would not discuss the action, other than to say: "I know of the claim and the theory behind it and all I can say is that it's going to be disputed. We're in the process of obtaining legal representation."

A decision on whether to sue some of Bermuda's most influential local businessmen for millions of dollars, stemming from the collapse of Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance, is expected to be made over the next couple of months. At stake is over $100 million owed to creditors of Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance and the credibility of Bermuda's regulatory and legal system in relation to protecting the rights of foreigners doing business with Bermuda-based insurers and reinsurers.

Top Turf Enterprises, which was told last month by Senior Magistrate Will Francis to improve its management structure in order to save its gambling licence, has offered former manager David Parreira his old job back.Mr. Parreira has accepted the job, subject to government approval.

The Modern Mart supermarket in Paget, Bermuda may be putting its customers' health at risk by selling vast quantities of food that is several weeks out of date, we can reveal.In one instance, the supermarket was this week selling a can of milupa Milumil powdered ‘infant formula' baby milk that should not be consumed - let alone sold - after May 31, 1994.

Strategic Asset Management Ltd. is laying off four staff in Bermuda and one in London following the firm's decision to liquidate its hedge fund.SAM hopes to avoid further job cuts among its total staff of 21 but cannot make firm decisions until the firm's principals decide what to do next.The company's traders may start trading managed accounts which are tailor-made to suit each client's specific needs, rather than another mutual fund, said Andrew Davisson, one of SAM's three partners.

Strategic Asset Management Ltd. is liquidating its high-risk derivatives fund after suffering heavy losses over March and April.Following a 7.1 per cent loss in March, nervous investors in the SAM Global Fund redeemed $40 million worth of shares in April.The forced liquidation of market positions to pay these shareholders hindered the fund's performance and contributed to a further loss of 8.5 per cent in April, said Andrew Davisson, one of the fund's three partners.

The Bermuda Financial Centre Ltd development in Hamilton will go ahead as planned if the company can pre-lease 70 per cent of the project's office space, BFCL's president Mike Winfield us yesterday. Raising enough debt and equity to build the $82.5 million office space/luxury residences phase of the project no longer appears to be a problem, providing the lease commitments for the office space can be put into place.

A fourth legal action has been brought against controversial reinsurer North American Fidelity & Guarantee, which moved to Belgium in 1993 after being kicked out of Bermuda by the government.London-based CRM Insurance Services Ltd is suing NAF&G and two related companies, Kobe Reinsurance and Dai Ichi Kyoto Reinsurance Company, for $2.89 million in the High Court of the United Kingdom. The action was filed on February 28.

Reinsurer North American Fidelity & Guarantee - which operated in Bermuda for just over a year before being asked to leave by the island's government - is being sued yet again.Already a defendant in two actions totalling $4.7 million stemming from its short time in Bermuda, a third action for approximately $2.5 million was filed against NAF&G by New York Marine & General Insurance Company at Bermuda Supreme Court on April 7.

The Sagacity Futures Fund is being liquidated 14 months after launch following heavy losses incurred by the fall of the US dollar to record lows against the Japanese Yen during March.Sagacity, which was managed by former Bank of Bermuda chief economist Allan Marshall and sold by Lines Overseas Management, was a high risk fund that took leveraged positions in financial futures and related options traded on the world's major futures exchanges.

Plans are afoot for a revolutionary machine to be embedded off Bermuda's south shore to harness the island's wave energy.The apparatus will be located somewhere along the coast line between Southampton and Devonshire Bay at a minimum depth of 25 metres - if approval is granted.Its purpose will be to use natural wave energy to pump water to an onshore desalination plant.

Bermuda International Investment Management Ltd - a subsidiary of the Bank of Bermuda - has resigned as financial advisor to the Bermuda Financial Centre Ltd after failing to raise $82.5 million to get the hotel, office and luxury residences project off the ground.

Businessman Walter Sommer, who led a classic rags to riches life, died penniless, we have been told.Mr Sommer's business affairs have collapsed following his death of a suspected heart attack on February 1. He was 59.His luxury hotel in England has been put into receivership and his 40 per cent stake in Fourways Inn Ltd, which owns guest cottages in Bermuda and one of the island's most expensive restaurants, is now controlled by the Bank of Bermuda.

A fund manager which says it has approximately $9.5 billion under management has moved to Bermuda from California.STW Fixed Income Management Ltd has about 80 institutions and high net worth individuals as clients.

Bermuda-based Shoreline Mutual, which issues certificates of financial guarantee for vessels entering US waters, has arranged further reinsurance for all its members to protect them against supplemental cash calls being made in the event of substantial claims.The policy, which has been placed by Willis Faber & Dumas and Sedgwick Marine & Cargo and is underwritten 100 per cent at Lloyd's, is expected to strengthen Shoreline's product in the battle for business with its main rival, First Line, which is also based in Bermuda.

Police yesterday arrested Bermudian Dannielle Bezant in connection with the alleged theft of more than $100,000 from her employer, wholesaler Winter-Cookson, Petty Ltd, where she worked as controller. Ms Bezant, who is in her late 30s, was arrested yesterday evening when she turned up to be interviewed by Bermuda's fraud squad.

Caliban Holdings Ltd, which owns Belvedere Insurance and other insurance-related entities, has brought a legal action against Belvedere's former vice president and treasurer, Vanessa Thomas, to try to force her to sell her five per cent stake in Caliban back to the company.

Leading Canadian investment firm Goodman & Company, whose parent, Dundee Bancorp, owns a 40 per cent stake in Bermuda-based Mid-Ocean Trust Company Ltd, has launched a new mutual fund in Bermuda.The fund - Mid-Ocean Global Asset Allocation Fund - has an authorised capital of US$100 million and will be managed by Goodman & Company (Bermuda) Ltd, an exempted company which recently began operations on the island. The fund will start with approximately $5 million under management.

Bookmaker Top Turf Enterprises is being investigated by Bermuda police and government after concerns about the way the company is operated, we can reveal.The authorities are worried that Top Turf, which has an office in Hamilton, may have fallen under the influence of an undesirable business element in the US.

Former head of Bermuda National Bank John Grant Marshall is facing more financial anguish stemming from his spell as a director of controversial reinsurer North American Fidelity & Guarantee.NAF&G, which is already being sued for $3.7 million at Bermuda Supreme Court in a claim last year, has had a new $1 million action brought against it by Bermuda-based Hopewell International Insurance Ltd, which is a reinsurance pool for captive insurance firms.

Former Bank of Butterfield officer David Notman has become president of international investment advisors Interinvest (Bermuda) Ltd, which has moved to new offices opposite ACE Insurance on Front Street, Hamilton.In his new role, Mr Notman will run Interinvest's Bermuda operations and will liaise with its offices overseas.

An application to compulsorily wind up Stockholm Re (Bermuda) Ltd was made yesterday - ten months after the company went into run off.The company said that "until very recently" the financial position of Stockholm Re indicated that "the reserves would be sufficient to satisfy known claims".

The Bermuda Government has been asked to set up a hardship fund to compensate 1,600 local victims of failed insurer United Security Life Insurance Company.The call has come from 78-year-old stroke victim Burlington Williams, who believes government negligence contributed to the company's collapse.

Zurich Reinsurance Centre Holdings to buy Re Capital.

Bermuda still has a lot of hard work to do before it convinces many foreign insurance industry professionals that it is a serious market, local bosses were told yesterday.In a speech to about 170 people at the Bermuda Insurance Institute's monthly luncheon, Kathryn McIntyre, publisher of US insurance magazine Business Insurance, warned the Bermuda market about becoming complacent.

Bermuda's eight major hotels yesterday reported their first collective profit since 1987. They made a combined net income of $5.8 million for the 12 months ending September 30, 1994, following total losses of $47 million for the previous six years.

More London companies are likely set up offices in Bermuda as the British insurance industry increasingly realises the long-term importance of the island's market.And more Bermuda-based insurers and reinsurers may also start having their assets managed from the island instead of having them handled overseas.These are some of the views of Bill Bailey, chairman of Bermuda's newest insurance firm, Terra Nova (Bermuda) Holdings Ltd.

Creditors of United Security Life Insurance Company Ltd will receive a first and final dividend in the region of 27 cents on the dollar sometime early in the New Year, the firm's provisional liquidator, Gil Tucker, announced yesterday.

Insurance executives aligned to two groups in Bermuda have been working frantically over the last few weeks to provide the first certificates of financial responsibility now required of shipowners whose vessels will enter US waters. Up for grabs are tens of millions of dollars in annual premiums. David Marchant looks at Bermuda's newest reinsurance product and assesses the winners and losers.