POMPANO BEACH, Fla. and SAN DIEGO, May 11, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Blue Frog Solutions, a leading provider of straight-through processing and compliance solutions for the annuity and life industries, today announced a minority investment from Linsco/Private Ledger Corp. (LPL Financial Services), the nation's largest independent broker/dealer.
LPL is currently in production with Blue Frog's Affirm(tm) for Annuities solution, a compliance and order management system created to integrate an insurer's complex product rules with a distributor's compliance processing to generate transactions that are in good order. Compliant annuity applications are subsequently electronically submitted to carriers for processing after successfully passing all supervisory reviews required by the distributor. Affirm(tm) is built on the ADMServer Framework, a cross-functional software development framework designed to manage data for insurance services.
There are currently more than 30 carriers on Blue Frog's Affirm(tm) for Annuities platform. Also in production is one of the nation's largest banks.
According to Brad Levine, Blue Frog's Chief Executive Officer, Blue Frog Solutions has worked tirelessly to make the Affirm(tm) application the annuity order and compliance solution that is utilized by more than 85 percent of the top annuity carriers and many of the largest distributors of annuities.
"Having three major industry players - LPL, Security Benefit, Pershing LLC - as investors in our company, all with a minority investment, enhances Blue Frog's preferred positioning in the marketplace for all of our clients, which include a wide variety of broker-dealers, banks, broker general agents and clearing firm clients," notes Levine.
"We're very excited to help facilitate the growth of Blue Frog, and to utilize their solutions to create an efficient way to deliver annuity and life products to our advisors," said Andrew Duggan, Chief Information Officer at LPL Financial Services.
Croft & Bender, LLC of Atlanta represented Blue Frog as their investment bankers in this transaction.
Blue Frog Solutions, www.BlueFrogSolutions.com, based in Pompano Beach, Florida, is a leading technology solutions provider and business processing outsourcing (BPO) firm that focuses on the life, annuities and long-term care market. Blue Frog automates both front and back end business processes between carriers and distributors with a focus on compliance to create automated business process efficiencies. Blue Frog's solutions are based on the firm's flagship ADMServer Framework software suite. As one of the largest providers of ACORD-based transactions and DTCC solutions, Blue Frog currently provides ADMServer solutions to more than 60 percent of the top 40 life and annuity companies and many of the largest distributors in the U.S.
The Blue Frog Solutions logo is available at http://media.primezone.com/prs/single/?pkgid=707
LPL Financial Services (LPL) is committed to providing its financial advisors with the tools they need to offer the highest quality of independent investment advice. LPL has ranked first among independent broker/dealers for 11 consecutive years by Financial Planning Magazine (June 1996-2006, based on revenues). With over 1,700 staff members headquartered in Boston, San Diego and Charlotte, LPL offers non-proprietary investment products, unbiased research and wealth management services to retail clients and the clients of its 700 financial institutions through more than 7,900 advisors nationwide. LPL financial advisors manage assets totaling more than $150 billion for their clients. For additional information about LPL, visit www.lpl.com.
Croft & Bender LLC, based in Atlanta, Georgia, is an investment banking firm focused on providing M&A, private equity and financial advisory services to middle-market and emerging growth companies in the Southeast. The firm also sponsors the C&B Capital private equity funds, with $44 million under management. For more information on Croft & Bender, visit www.croft-bender.com or contact the firm at (404) 841-3131.