Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell partner Philip Cooper represented commercial insurance broker Beecher Carlson on its recent expansion in Oregon, according to the law firm.

Beecher Carlson, of Atlanta, acquired Sage Insurance Group of Bend, Ore., for undisclosed terms. The deal closed in December. Beecher Carlson already had three offices in Oregon, in Portland, Eugene and Medford. Beecher Carlson has more than two-dozen offices nationwide and in Bermuda.

Locke Lord associate Valerie Barton joined Cooper on the deal. Beecher Carlson General Counsel Adam Meyerowitz handled in-house matters.

A private equity fund that is the majority-owner of an Atlanta mortgage-services provider turned to Debevoise & Plimpton for counsel on an agreement to sell the Atlanta company to an Australian firm.

QBE Insurance Group Ltd. agreed to acquire ZC Sterling Corp. for $575 million. The acquisition was announced at the same time that QBE said it was also buying two U.S. underwriting agencies and one in Europe, according to Bloomberg News.

ZC Sterling is owned Stone Point Capital LLC. Atlanta-based ZC Sterling provides outsourced services to the mortgage industry, such as managing lender-placed hazard insurance programs. QBE, of Sydney, Australia, sells general insurance and reinsurance in more than three dozen countries.

Debevoise partner Robert Quaintance was lead adviser to Stone Point Capital, according to the law firm. Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge advised QBE.

Stone Point Capital, of Greenwich, Conn., invests in financial services and insurance companies. Other companies in Stone Point Capital’s portfolio include Atlantic Capital Bank of Atlanta, and personal lines insurance agency Lane McVicker LLC, which has an office in Alpharetta.

Never mind the recession, Ebix Inc. wants to make deals. That’s been good news for Ebix’s corporate lawyers at Carlton Fields.

On Monday, the Atlanta company announced it had reached an agreement to acquire ConfirmNet Corp. of San Diego for $7.4 million in cash, plus future cash considerations, according to a regulatory filing. ConfirmNet is involved in the certificate of insurance creation and tracking industry.

ConfirmNet is Ebix’s sixth acquisition, or offer to acquire a company, in the past 12 months. Atlanta-based Ebix makes software for the insurance industry.

Not all of Ebix’s deals have gone swimmingly, however.

Ebix has been engaged in a bidding war with a California company to acquire health-insurance software maker Healthaxis Inc. of Irving, Texas. Ebix made its first bid for Healthaxis in September, offering $6.8 million in cash and stock. That offer was accompanied by a “guaranteed downside price cover,” in which Healthaxis shareholders could sell the stock back to Ebix “for the price at which they received it” for a period of a year, according to a regulatory filing. Healthaxis rejected the offer, preferring to stick with its existing agreement to sell itself to BPO Management Services Inc. of Anaheim Hills, Calif.

Ebix has since made two additional, higher offers, the last coming on Oct. 27. Healthaxis rejected both of those too. Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell partner John McKnight in Dallas has been advising Healthaxis.

Other Ebix deals in the past year include its merger in Nov. 2007 with Jenquest Inc.; its acquisition of Telstra eBusiness Services of Australia in January; its purchase of Periculum Services Group in April; and its August acquisition of Acclamation Systems Inc.

Carlton Fields partner Rick Denmon in Tampa and associate Charles M. “Chip” Harrell Jr. [photo, left] in Atlanta were the primary corporate advisers to Ebix on the offer for Healthaxis, said Wayne Shortridge, managing partner of the law firm’s Atlanta office. Although he’s an associate, Harrell has developed Ebix as a Carlton Fields client, Shortridge said. Carlton Fields also advised Ebix on some of the prior transactions, including the Acclamation Systems and Jenquest deals.

Powell Goldstein’s merger partner—Bryan Cave—maintains an active corporate practice. Bryan Cave placed 10^th on Thomson Financial’s 2007 ranking of law firms on the number of U.S. M&A deals for which they advised the target or acquiring company.

Bryan Cave’s most-recent work in the corporate transactions area involved a longtime client, Reinsurance Group of America Inc., better known as RGA. Partners Randy Wang and Jim Levey advised RGA on common stock offering. RGA plans to sell 8.9 million shares at $33.89 per share. Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley are the underwriters.

RGA, one of the world’s largest life reinsurance companies, is headquartered in the St. Louis suburb of Chesterfield, Mo.

Although Wang and Levey both work in St. Louis, Bryan Cave’s largest office, the law firm’s corporate transactions lawyers are spread out geographically. St. Louis counts 57 lawyers in the corporate transactions practice group, while New York has 30, Kansas City has 29 and Los Angeles has 12.

In addition to RGA, some of Bryan Cave’s other clients in the corporate area include Barnes & Noble Inc., Energizer Holdings Inc., International Paper Co. and Sprint Nextel Corp.

Aflac Inc. may bid to acquire one of American International Group Inc.’s Japanese life insurance assets, Bloomberg News reported.

Aflac may attempt to purchase the Alico Japan life insurance unit, which AIG is putting up for sale, Aflac CEO Daniel Amos told Bloomberg Television. Aflac gets 70 percent of its sales in Japan.

Alston & Bird and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom have handled some corporate work for the Columbus, Ga. insurance company in recent years. Alston advised Aflac as a creditor seeking claims in the Parmalat bankruptcy case, according to Alston’s web site. Skadden partner Michael P. Rogan in 2006 advised Aflac on a securities offering in connection with a deferred compensation plan. Skadden counsel Nancy G. Rubin in Washington has advised Aflac on general corporate and securities matters, according to the law firm’s web site.

Aflac’s general counsel, Joey M. Loudermilk, has been with the company since 1983.

Aflac is most interested in Alico because of the similarity of the products they offer, Amos said. Alico is Japan's fifth-largest life insurer.

“Alico has been a competitor of ours for years, and we think Alico has a lot of potential in terms of an acquisition,” Amos said Oct. 10.

AIG said Oct. 3 it is seeking to sell life insurance and retirement businesses as it tries to repay an $85 billion loan extended by the U.S. government to keep the insurer from collapsing, Bloomberg said. In addition to Alico, AIG is selling its AIG Edison Life Insurance Co. and AIG Star Life Insurance Co. units in Japan.

Burr & Forman advised an Atlanta risk-management company on forming a strategic alliance with a New Jersey provider of data to the insurance industry.

Burr partners Deborah Franz [left] and Martin Tilson, both in Atlanta, were counsel to Ivox Corp. on the multimillion-dollar “strategic financing alliance” it formed with Insurance Services Office Inc. Additional terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed.

In addition to the financial investment, the two companies also expect to cooperate on research and new-product development.

Ivox, based in Atlanta, is engaged in the business of “assessing and managing risk in private and commercial fleets,” according to the company’s web site. Ivox’s customers are property and casualty insurance companies, and self-insured corporations owning and operating vehicle fleets.

Insurance Services Office, also known as ISO, provides statistical, actuarial and underwriting information for the property-casualty insurance and risk management industries. ISO is headquartered in Jersey City, N.J. McCarter & English advised ISO on the alliance with Ivox.

A row between an Atlanta insurance company and the homebuilders’ trade association that founded it is leading Georgia State Insurance Commissioner John W. Oxendine into uncharted legal territory.

“There are a lot of matters of first impression in this case, because we’ve never really had this type of dispute,” said Oxendine (see photo), adding that he and his staff have consulted with the state attorney general on the dispute.

At issue is Builders Insurance Group, an Atlanta-based company that sells workers’ compensation and general liability insurance to homebuilders. The company was founded in 1992 by the Homebuilders Association of Georgia (HBAG). The status of that affiliation – between Builders Insurance and HBAG – is at the heart of the groups’ current fight.

HBAG argues that the directors of Builders Insurance have overpaid themselves. HBAG counsel, Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough corporate partner Charles R. “Rusty” Pickering, is advising the group on a proxy battle for control of Builders Insurance, introducing a slate of six new directors.

Builders Insurance president Patrick Mitchell counters that HBAG is trying to seize control of the company as a way to protect its turf as the dominant trade organization for homebuilders. King & Spalding corporate partner Alan J. Prince is advising Builders Insurance on the matter.

An additional prong in HBAG’s strategy is to rewrite Builders Insurance’s charter. That’s where Oxendine comes in, and it’s also what the state Insurance Commissioner says is new territory.More...

Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough partner Charles R. “Rusty” Pickering is advising the Home Builders Association of Georgia on a proxy battle for control of Builders Insurance Group.

Builders Insurance Group was founded by homebuilders in 1992 to provide workers’ compensation insurance to homebuilding companies. Since then it has grown to become the largest mutual captive insurance company in Georgia, said state Insurance Commisioner John W. Oxendine.

Home Builders Association members, who comprise a large percentage of Builders Insurance Group’s policy holders, allege that the company’s directors overpay themselves, a result of the company’s growth and success.

Builders Insurance Group has paid “excessive salaries, fees and indirect compensation to its directors, reported at more than $1.9 million in 2006 and 2007 alone,” the Home Builders Association said in a statement.

“This is out of line with market compensation for similarly sized companies and … far exceeded directors’ compensation at large public companies like United Parcel Service and Delta Air Lines,” the association said.

The Home Builders Association is launching this battle because "Builders [Insurance Group] has been endorsed by an alternative association, the Contractors Benefit Association (CBA), with much lower dues," the company said in a statement.

"This is a self-serving effort by HBAG to grow and maintain its membership rolls at a cost of increased expenses to the policyholders of Builders Insurance," the company said.More...