Lost Principal Recovered For Deficient Wisconsin Funeral Trust

A court appointed receiver named John Wirth has spent 32 months recovering almost $12 million in settlements for a Wisconsin Funeral Trust that had at least a $21 million deficiency.  The fund which is now known as a WFT Liquidating Trust is now defunct, but it will continue to exist to pay for the funeral expenses of its remaining 7,859 investors. 

John Wirth took control of the Trust when Wisconsin finance and insurance regulators discovered that the fund had been shedding money and making highly speculative investments for several years since the Trusts creation in 1999.  Wirth was able to recover in settlements “more than the principal that was lost.”  Most of the settlement agreements remain confidential with Wirth stating that “[w]e would not have been as successful if we didn’t include those (secrecy) agreements with each of the people we settled with.”

See George Hesselberg, Case In Money-Shedding Funeral Fund Closes With Lost Principal Recovered, Wisconsin State Journal, May 15, 2015.   

Special thanks to Brian Cohan (Attorney at Law, Law Offices of Brian J. Cohan, P.C.) for bringing this article to my attention.