William J. Kelty, III

Partner

701 8th Street, N.W.
Suite 700
Washington, D.C. 20001
Phone: (202) 220-6967
Fax: (202) 521-4209
wkelty@lockelord.com

Bill Kelty is Managing Partner of the Firm’s Washington D.C. office. His practice focuses on representation of insurance companies and other financial institutions in connection with their relationships and transactions with insurance companies. He has extensive experience in a wide range of insurance regulatory and transactional issues, with particular concentration in insurance company sales, mergers and acquisitions (including contested acquisitions); reinsurance transactions (including bulk reinsurance, indemnity, co-insurance and modified co-insurance and assumption transactions); regulation of insurance holding company systems; insurance company investments; structuring alternative risk financing mechanisms, including insurance linked securities and collateral facilities; corporate governance and other general corporate matters and related regulatory and judicial proceedings.

Mr. Kelty was selected for inclusion in Who’s Who legal: Illinois 2008 as a leading attorney in the areas of Insurance and Reinsurance. He also has been named one of The Best Lawyers in America for Insurance Law and in the Guide to the World’s Leading Insurance & Reinsurance Lawyers.

Education

J.D., University of Chicago Law School, 1975
B.A., Boston College, 1968

Bar Admissions

District of Columbia, 2009

Admitted To Practice

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, 1975

Representative Experience

His clients include property and casualty and life insurers and reinsurers, banks, insurance agencies, financial institutions investing in or financing insurance industry ventures. In recent years, Mr. Kelty has represented:

Hannover Life Re in its $1.3b requisition of Scottish Re U.S. individual life reinsurance business;
Aegon in its $260 million tender offer for Clark, Inc., a NYSE listed executive compensation consulting company;
Hannover Reinsurance in its $200 million Kepler Re risk securitization;
Bank One Corporation in its acquisition of the U.S. life and annuity operation of a major international insurance group for approximately $500 million;
Hannover Re in the split of its U.S. specialty property and casualty operations into operating and runoff groups;
A subsidiary of Hannover Reinsurance, as issuer, in connection with its off-shore issue of $400 million of guaranteed subordinated step-up floating rate notes;
Conseco insurance subsidiaries in the purchase of $330 million in structured securities;
AEGON USA in the purchase and subsequent sale of a minority membership interest in Long, Miller & Associates to Clark/Bardes (total transaction value $400 million);
HARO Financial Corporation as U.S. regulatory counsel in connection with its Canadian $250 million investment in Crown Life Insurance Company;
Various U.S. life insurance companies in their acquisition of billions of dollars of in force life insurance business from insurance companies in rehabilitation;
BATUS Inc. as Illinois counsel in connection with its acquisition of Farmers Group, Inc. and its defense of Sir James Goldsmith’s attempted takeover of B.A.T. Industries, P.L.C., and the acquirer of Merit Insurance Company, a closely held company, in the most bitterly contested Form A proceedings in Illinois history.