AmTrust Financial Services Inc. – AFSI
$9.74  Mkt Cap $1.91 B

Maiden Holdings Ltd. – MHLD
$6.90  Mkt Cap $584 mm

National General Holdings Corp. – NGHC
$21.49  Mkt Cap $2.29 B

Summary and Opinion:  We remain negative on each of these related companies and believe recent positive price action is not sustainable if undisclosed SEC probes and other challenges continue to pressure them. 

As we went to press, this week shares of AFSI were up nearly 12% on no specific news. Investors appear to believe that ongoing instability at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will mean reduced regulatory pressure on AFSI entities.

OK, we’ll play along.  But did you notice that only a few weeks ago A.M. Best placed the credit ratings of AmTrust Financial Services, Inc. and its subsidiaries under review with negative implications?  

Negative developments like this don’t surprise us as, again, we’ve been warning of undisclosed SEC probes at EACH of these three companies. Yet against this backdrop we’ve noted Chairman/CEO Barry Zyskind has a history of attacking the shorts while still refusing to come clean with investors about the SEC probes we keep hearing are on-going. These are the types of Disclosure Games we’ve found don’t usually end well. 

From our database: On 08-May-2017, when AFSI closed at $15.47, we first wrote, Undisclosed SEC probes confirmed at AmTrust Financial Services, Maiden Holdings, and National General Holdings. 

On 26-May-2017, we then published Don’t Forget, There’s Another Shoe Yet to Drop at AmTrust Financial.

For AFSI we last confirmed on-going SEC investigative activity as of 17-Apr-2017. New research for AFSI has been in-process since Oct-2017.  For NGHC, on-going SEC investigative activity was last confirmed as of 21-Jul-2017.  For MHLD it was on 20-Sep-2017. 

-- Probes Reporter®

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