Dublin-based medtech group, Clanwilliam, which has operations here, in the UK, India, New Zealand and Australia, has signed a sale agreement with global private equity firm TA Associates, a spokeswoman has told The Irish Times.
The sale is linked to a process aimed at retrieving hundreds of millions of dollars in insurance money linked to a multibillion-dollar fraud by the group’s former owner, Greg Lindberg (55), court documents in the US show.
A court order from two years ago cites a possible sale to TA Associates that would yield $415 million (€382 million) and says the sale was proposed by Lindberg and his Global Growth group of companies. In the event, it appears the business fetched closer to $450 million (€414 million).
The Dublin-based medtech group is a core target of officials appointed by the US courts to assert control over assets bought by Lindberg, a former insurance mogul, with the improper use of insurance money, according to court filings.
Receivers have been appointed over Lindberg assets to fund compensation for the thousands of US policyholders whose insurers have been placed in receivership arising from Lindberg’s criminal actions.
In March 2023, a judge in North Carolina approved the proposed sale of the Clanwilliam Group to TA Associates, and stipulated that Lindberg should not have “dominion” over any of the then estimated $415 million in sale proceeds.
The sale order by judge Graham Shirley of the superior court of justice in Wake County was necessary because the sale would otherwise have been in breach of a restraining order over the sale of Lindberg assets. The judge decided the sale should go ahead as it would be in the interest of the plaintiffs in the case.
The judge is presiding over an ongoing case involving four insurance company plaintiffs that are under court protection (rehabilitation) and the effort to secure recovery of assets from Lindberg, his Global Growth Holdings group, and specified affiliated companies.
“Based on the evidence adduced at the trial of this matter, the Clanwilliam Group was the most valuable specified affiliated company under the Global Growth portfolio of companies,” the judge said when approving the sale.
The US court filings, which have not been reported before, include allegations that Lindberg, who bought the Dublin business in 2014, has been seeking to frustrate the efforts of court-appointed receivers to secure value for Lindberg’s assets.
The former insurance mogul is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to the misuse of billions of dollars of insurance money to fund a global spending spree. As part of a plea arrangement, he has committed to helping recover assets for the benefit of insurance premium holders in the US.
Clanwilliam employs more than 950 people across three continents and derives three-quarters of its revenue in markets outside Ireland, working with public and private clients in more than 20 countries, a spokeswoman said.
Headquartered in Sandyford, its most recent filed accounts show it had a turnover of €95.8 million in 2023, when it made a pretax profit of €6.5 million.
The group is by far the largest supplier of electronic patient record software to Irish GPs. Last year the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) opened an investigation into suspected breaches of competition law in relation to the group’s provision of patient record software and related services such as electronic referrals and text messaging services. The inquiry is ongoing.
In a statement at the time the investigation was announced, the company said: “As a global technology company Clanwilliam takes its regulatory, compliance and accreditation obligations very seriously in all countries in which we operate and are happy to co-operate with the CCPC’s investigation.”
Formerly Helix Health, Clanwilliam was set up by Irish entrepreneur Howard Beggs (57), who is now resident in Monaco but still the group CEO. The business was bought by Lindberg in 2014 for a reported €45 million using an Irish company, Triton Financial Ltd, and grew quickly thereafter.
Triton Financial, which was set up by Lindberg to buy assets outside the US, has not filed accounts since 2017.
In 2019, Lindberg was charged in North Carolina with wire fraud and bribery and the following year convicted and jailed. Two years later he was released after a successful appeal on legal grounds ordered a retrial. That trial took place last year and he was again convicted.
Separately, in Florida, he pleaded guilty in December to fraud and money laundering concerning the “misuse” of about $2 billion in insurance funds.
In January, a court in North Carolina appointed a “special master”, Joe Grier, to oversee a team charged with unwinding Lindberg’s holdings so that victims of his insurance fraud can be compensated.
Among the allegations made against Lindberg is that he used insurance money to fund the purchase of personal assets, including a private jet, a yacht and multiple expensive residential properties.
He has also been accused of improperly using the money to pay for surveillance on women whom he wanted to pay to donate eggs that he would fertilise and have implanted in other women.
Now divorced, Lindberg has 12 children, including three from his former marriage. In a video he uploaded on YouTube in December, he said his decision to have more children came after he was sentenced to seven years in jail in 2020 after the initial North Carolina trial for attempting to bribe an insurance commissioner.
“The prosecutor said that he wanted to ‘incapacitate Greg Lindberg’ – so I thought what better way to deny him that satisfaction than to have a large, beautiful family,” he said.
Last month, a spokeswoman for Clanwilliam said a UK-based trust was established in November 2020 “so that there would be a complete change in control and ownership of Clanwilliam at that time”.
Clanwilliam’s 2023 accounts say its ultimate parent is now a UK holding trust. “H Steven Wilson [a 77-year-old US attorney] serves as trustee and Howard Beggs and [Clanwilliam chief financial officer] Gerry Hunt are the ultimate controlling parties of the group. The ultimate controller of the trust is R Gaddy.”
Robert Gaddy (57) is president of Apex International LLC, which carried out surveillance on potential egg donors for Lindberg.
In 2019, after the Wall Street Journal published a report about Apex and Lindberg, Gaddy issued a statement in which he said there was “nothing salacious” about Lindberg’s personal life and that Lindberg was “cautious” about the women he dated.
“Mr Lindberg is expecting a baby (via gestational carrier) this month. In the interest of ensuring the safety of his family, he hired Apex International LLC to look closely at the lives of potential egg donors to make sure they were safe and healthy – something any parent should understand,” Gaddy said.
“Any background checks undertaken were simply conducted to ensure that women he dated did not have substance abuse issues or criminal backgrounds. This was for the protection of Mr Lindberg’s growing family, as well as himself.”
In January, Lindberg filed a complaint to a court in Texas in which he said the trust that owns Clanwilliam was one of a number he set up to manage his interests “in hundreds of companies throughout the world”, the collective value of which was “several billion dollars”.
He said he funded the trusts by transferring his interests to them and entrusted their management to Wilson, who, he claimed, was paid a seven-figure fee for managing the trust assets.
However, his complaint said, he was now concerned about the decisions Wilson was making.
Clanwilliam was worth between $500 million and $800 million, but the proposed buyer, TA Associates LLP, a global private equity firm, “is only offering $450 million”, the complaint claimed.
Clanwilliam is not represented in the many court cases involving Lindberg in the US. A spokeswoman for the group said it did not want to respond to claims made by Lindberg in his court filings.
Lindberg’s claims were cited in the North Carolina court by a receiver, William Janvier, who has been appointed over the assets of Global Group in an application where he said Lindberg and Gaddy should be brought before the court to “show cause”.
Lindberg should be found in contempt by the court, Janvier argued in the complaint, filed in February. There is a temporary restraining order against Lindberg, which prohibits him from initiating court actions, Janvier said.
The Texas complaint, Janvier said, was intended to frustrate the sale of the Clanwilliam Group, despite the 2023 court order that the group should be sold.
Janvier said the 2023 sale order provided “that the entities making up the Clanwilliam Group are specified affiliated companies (SACs), meaning they are companies that will be transferred to become subsidiaries of” a new holding company.
This new holding company, and Wilson, “are presently engaged in a process to sell the Clanwilliam Group, as outlined in the sale order”, the submission said.
The show cause hearing has yet to take place.
In a submission to the same North Carolina court, also in February, Lindberg sought Janvier’s dismissal, and the removal of the temporary restraining order against him, given the appointment of Grier and the co-operation agreement with Grier that Lindberg had made as part of his plea arrangement.
He said the court should grant his request given that, in October 2024, he had signed over his interest in all his assets governed by the restraining order, including in the Clanwilliam Group trust, to the new holding company.
Clanwilliam’s spokeswoman said this week: “A definitive agreement has been signed whereby Clanwilliam Group will be acquired by global private equity firm, TA Associates.
“As is customary for multinational transactions of this scale, the transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and the transaction details will remain confidential until the regulatory process is complete.”
