About
Mike Abraham
Mike Abraham is a director of IndemnityFirst Limited a company formed in 2000 with its administration offices in Geneva. It specialises in product design and delivery mainly centered upon the Traded Policy market.
After running medium size production companies in the fashion industry in 1980. He joined what was then Hambro Life as a financial consultant. He has held senior Sales Consultant positions as an Independent Financial Adviser and with Allied Dunbar and Target Group where he was through 1985/86/87 the top-performing Consultant. During those years he specialised in executive benefits, pension planning and commercial lending. In 1990, having been asked by a client to provide a low risk investment that would provide better returns than bank interest, he investigated the emerging Traded Endowment Policy (TEP) market.
To satisfy the client demand he provided individual TEPs but then began to design bespoke products using TEPs and in 1995 he was one of the co-founders of the Shepherds Group. Under his guidance Shepherds became known as the innovator in the Traded Policy market amongst other things being the first to buy TEPs over the phone and by internet and the major provider of individual portfolios of TEPs. He and his team at Shepherds were instrumental in the development of the Traded Life Policy (Viatical & Life Settlement policies) market again being the first to produce a mutual fund that was available through financial advisers throughout the world.
In 2003 he became Chairman of the Group moving abroad and reducing his role in the Company. Since that time the group has experienced difficulties initially suffering from the effects of the equity market collapse and the effect it had upon endowments and later from the much publicised receivership of Mutual Benefits Corporation of Florida who were suppliers to the group.
The marketing and sales for IndemnityFirst are directed from Spain by Mr. Abraham. In the traded policy market Mike is probably the most experienced UK adviser having some fifteen years experience with traded endowments whilst in the last three years or so having concentrated on the US viaticals and Life Settlements, now commonly known as Traded Life Policies or TLPs. He has been responsible for the introduction of open-ended investment funds with monthly valuations and in fact coining the term TLP. In the last three years a lot has happened in this exploding market and Mike has been involved in much of this, giving him a unique understanding of the market’s problems as well as its advantages. These turbulent events, though sometimes painful, have only added to the breadth and depth of Mike’s knowledge and experience – expertise that gives IndemnityFirst its unique ability to help and advise others in the market.
When questioned about the problems and issues surrounding the market and particularly when speaking about Shepherds, Mike Abraham becomes somewhat voluble on the personal criticisms of his stewardship of that failed company. He points out that the main problems stemmed from the implosion of the traded endowment market as the insurers reacted to the ongoing stock market difficulties. He says ‘at the time we were holding massive stocks of mortgaged policies all of which were earmarked for customers, suddenly the value of the policies dropped by some £2m and the customers faded away. Our bank agreed to help but at a significant price. Even so we managed to continue to run the business and were recovering well when MBC were closed down by the SEC. People have since said we should have known about the MBC background – but what detractors choose to ignore was that MBC had a license to act from 1997 this license from a state that is known as one of the toughest on life settlement providers. Should we really need to double guess these people who were apparently overseeing the fate of some 27,000+ investors? In answering the question of his culpability he states - ‘I should have been holding less endowment stock when the prices dropped and I should not have trusted other directors to be working in the interest of Shepherds rather than their own’.
The court case against former Shepherds directors has now been settled with a significant payment being made to Shepherds. Mike Abraham commented ‘having been found guilty in April 2006 you would perhaps think that Simmons, Hindle & Walters would act properly and make restitution without further action being needed but typically and as they clearly do not understand the somewhat old fashioned virtues of loyalty and honesty I suppose I should not have been surprised at their refusal to do the ‘right thing’.
It should be noted that on certain of the search engines there is some reference to Mike as a financial adviser on the Costa del Sol. He has not acted as a financial adviser for some 14 years and certainly never on the Costa del Sol and the references to his involvement with Shepherds etc whilst essentially correct are written to sensationalise and mis-direct. If you are interested in facts then please request a due diligence pack and take a balanced view.