Richard Fields made a fortune off the great tort waves of the 1980s and 1990s -- asbestos, silicone breast implants -- by extracting billions of dollars from insurance companies that were reluctant to pay the bills of his corporate clients. Now he's on the sidelines, investing in lawsuits instead of arguing them. Fields runs Juridica Investments Ltd. The London-listed firm has about $157 million invested in 23 cases, and claims an internal rate of return on completed investments of 85%.
(Forbes) Richard Fields made a fortune off the great tort waves of the 1980s and 1990s -- asbestos, silicone breast implants -- by extracting billions of dollars from insurance companies that were reluctant to pay the bills of his corporate clients.
Now he's on the sidelines, investing in lawsuits instead of arguing them. Fields runs Juridica Investments Ltd. The London-listed firm has about $157 million invested in 23 cases, and claims an internal rate of return on completed investments of 85%.
It's a specialized type of financing that hedge funds like Elliott Associates, Eton Park and Fortress Investment Group have invested in for years. But firms like Juridica and its publicly traded counterpart, Burford Finance, are trying to turn it into an investment category like gold or commodities, with solid cash flows and little correlation to the stock market. Read More
