J.G. Wentworth - History

History

Founded in 1991, J.G. Wentworth started as a merchant bank handling transactions in the healthcare industry. In 1992 the company began to purchase New Jersey's auto insurance deferrals from claimants who could not afford to wait 12 to 18 months for their settlements.

By the late 1990s, JGW began to focus on the structured settlement and annuity business. JGW has issued 34 securitizations, which are backed by both structured settlements and annuities receivables totaling over US $2.3 billion. In July of 2012, the company completed $169.5 million securitization of notes that were backed by structured settlement and fixed annuity payments. The earliest securitization of 2012 was in March, for US $244 million with Class A notes rated Aaa by Moody's and AAA by DBRS. Since 1992 JGW has purchased US $4 billion in future payment obligations from consumers. As of November 2010, the company has completed a US $212 million securitization consisting of two classes of notes: Class A notes rated Aaa and Class B notes rated A2 by Moody's Investors Service, in addition to a Residual Class of US $14.8 million retained by the Company.

Prior to 1999 there was no state regulation for structured settlements in the state of New York. Elliot Spitzer entered into a contract with J.G. Wentworth to help protect New Yorkers from selling their settlements at exorbitant rates. The agreement stipulated that J.G. Wentworth could receive a rate of no more than 25 percent of the annual discount rate of annuities it had purchased from a citizen of the state of New York. At the time, a JGW executive told the New York Times that the firm sought the agreement because of the rate at which its business had grown in recent years.