Lane Gate Advisors, LP

Michael Crane has over three decades of experience in the capital markets in both the New York and London markets. While with established firms and de novo operations, Mr. Crane has had a leading or senior role in the raising or trading of billions of dollars in capital, ranging from corporate equity and debt to asset-backed securities, derivatives, preferred stock and the full spectrum of unsecured and secured debt financing. After receiving his undergraduate degree in economics and computer science from Harvard, he began his career in Corporate Finance at The First Boston Corporation. After eight years with First Boston, he held senior positions at Barclays Capital, Smith Barney, General Re Financial Products and Deutsche Bank in debt capital markets structuring and distribution roles.

He has been a pioneer in the longevity markets since he led the market’s first institutional equity capital allocation to life settlements while with Gen Re Financial Products, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway. After conceiving of, structuring and obtaining all approvals for the investment, Mr. Crane closed two separate secondary market “flow” life settlement transactions for Gen Re in the summer of 2001. In 2003, Mr. Crane was recruited by Deutsche Bank AG to establish a life settlements principal trading business in London, where he and his team traded over $2B (investment amount) of longevity-linked transactions globally.

After Deutsche Bank, Mr. Crane was recruited to be the first employee and CEO of an FSA regulated boutique securities firm focused on insurance linked exposures in London, UK, managing 25 staff based in offices in London, Hong Kong, Sydney and Tokyo. He has been responsible for a number of key industry achievements throughout his career, including the first three successful securitization of time share loans, first securitization of Small Business Administration Sec. 504 loans, the largest annual placement of MBS backed benefits for a US savings and loan, the first and the largest agency backed securitization of manufactured housing loans ($1B), and the first mandates globally for synthetic life settlement exposure from a European corporate pension fund and also from an Australian superannuation fund. Among others, he has been a frequent speaker at industry conferences around the world.

Bryan Cooper has over 15 years of investing and insurance related experience. He began his capital markets career in 2003 as a marketing rep for Family Protection Group where he focused on life and annuity products for the senior market. Within the first year, he was one of the top producers in the company and was asked to join as a partner. From 2005 through 2011 he was responsible for over 100 producing agents and oversaw product construction, training, and sales in the senior product and life settlements markets. After 6 years in that position, Mr. Cooper decided to focus primarily on the life settlement market and teamed up with a boutique life settlement firm that focused on mainly long term investments. In 2013, Mr. Cooper realized the opportunity that the short term and viatical settlements market could bring to his clients and made the switch from focusing on long term investments to short term and viatical policies with excellent results. He has been responsible for investing over $50 million in short term and viatical policy investments over the last 5 years and has produced attractive double digit returns for his investors.