Market Volume Continues to Surge; 2016 Busiest Year in Secondary Market Since 2009

NEW YORK, June 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Deal, a business unit of TheStreet, Inc. (NASDAQ: TST), issued results from its annual survey of the life settlement market which reveal that transactions increased 47% last year, as small-face policies gained traction and marketing efforts began reaching consumers. The survey, compiled mainly from information obtained through public records requests to state insurance departments, includes data from 31 providers, including 10 who did not report any activity.

"The growth of the life settlement market is good news for seniors who want to sell their life insurance policies and recoup some cash or get out from under the burden of paying high premiums," said Donna Horowitz, senior editor of The Life Settlements Report. "It's an asset like any other piece of property that seniors are starting to learn has value. Buyers are especially interested in small-face policies owned by average Americans and are reaching out to them more than ever before with TV ads and Internet marketing to let them know that it's been legal to sell their policies for more than 100 years."

Highlights from the report include:

• The number of policy sales grew to 1,650 in 2016, from 1,123 in 2015, while the total face value purchased increased to $2.14 billion, compared to $1.65 billion the previous year.
• Top six settlement buyers:
• Coventry First LLC led the market in the total number of transactions, buying 277 policies in 2016 compared to 168 policies the year before. Coventry First paid $51 million and purchased $264.54 million in policies.
• Magna Life Settlements, Inc. paid $159.04 million last year. Policies purchased by Magna Life Settlements totaled 266 transactions with $501.26 million in face value.
• GWG Life LLC tied for second place, also with 266 transactions last year, compared to 105 in 2015. GWG Life paid $61.03 million for $337.22 million in face value last year.
• Life Equity LLC placed fourth last year, paying $30.53 million for 150 transactions with a face value of $396 million. In 2015, Life Equity did 181 transactions with a face value of $332.78 million.
• Abacus Settlements LLC ranked fifth with 127 settlements, $34.49 million paid and a face value of $222.87 million.
• Settlement Group, Inc. ranked sixth with 122 settlements, $15.82 million paid and a face value of $138.59 million.

The full article is available online, or learn more about The Deal's Life Settlements League Tables by visiting http://www.thedeal.com/league-tables/life-settlements/.

About The Deal's Life Settlements League Tables
The Life Settlements Report has published information on the volume of the life settlement market annually since 2010 to bring more transparency to the market. It is the only publication that collects and assembles such data on the secondary market in such detail. The transaction information mainly is obtained through public-records requests to numerous state insurance departments. It does not include tertiary transactions, or policies traded after the initial purchase, although the newsletter tracks the bigger portfolio deals in the normal course of reporting.

About The Deal 
The Deal (www.thedeal.com) provides actionable, intraday coverage of mergers, acquisitions and all other changes in corporate control to institutional investors, private equity, hedge funds and the firms that serve them. The Deal is a business unit of TheStreet, Inc. (NASDAQ: TST, www.t.st), a leading financial news and information provider. Other business units include TheStreet (www.thestreet.com), which is celebrating its 20^th year of producing unbiased business news and market analysis; BoardEx (www.boardex.com), the leading relationship mapping service of corporate directors and officers; and RateWatch (www.rate-watch.com), which supplies rate and fee data from banks and credit unions across the U.S.

Contact: Jon Kostakopoulos, 212-321-5561, Jon.Kostakopoulos at thestreet.com

SOURCE TheStreet, Inc.

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