AmTrust named one of its executives focused on M&A as its new chief financial officer, capping a busy spring for the specialty property/casualty insurer involving a multi-year audit and efforts to improve its accounting controls.
Adam Karkowsky has served as AmTrust’s executive vice president for Strategic Development and Mergers & Acquisitions since March 2011. He’ll replace Ronald Pipoly, Jr. as CFO, who had served in that role since 2005. Pipoly will work with Karkowsky on a smooth transition, AmTrust said in an announcement.
In Karkowsky’s previous role, he’s led AmTrust’s merger and acquisition initiatives and oversaw AmTrust’s corporate development and corporate strategy. He directed AmTrust’s strategic expansion both in the U.S. and internationally. As CFO, he’ll be based at AmTrust’s New York City headquarters.
AmTrust Chairman and CEO Barry Zyskind said that Karkowsky is “uniquely qualified” to become the company’s latest CFO.
“He has a deep understanding of AmTrust and the property and casualty insurance industry,” Zyskind said in prepared remarks.
Pipoly, who has been with AmTrust since 2001, served the insurer well, Zyskind added, thanking him “for his many contributions and hard work as CFO over the past twelve years.”
In March, the New York-based insurer delayed its 2016 annual report by a few weeks in order to conduct an audit and restate financial statements for the year as well as related disclosures for 2014 and 2015. Those restatements led to a 7.2 percent decline of net income attributable to common stockholders in 2014 and an 11.2 percent drop in 2015. AmTrust said the reports of its former independent auditor BDO USA were at issue. The company has since said it has boosted its internal financial controls, and created a chief accounting officer position.
Recently, the family of Zyskind and director George Karfunkel injected $300 million into the company for new shares in a private placement in an effort to stabilize AmTrust, as its market capitalization dropped by about half so far this year ($2.1 billion.)
The Securities and Exchange Commission is also reportedly investigating AmTrust’s accounting.
Source: AmTrust Financial Services