The U.S. government yesterday charged the founder of reverse mortgage provider Live Well Financial Inc. with engineering a $140 million fraud by inflating the value of its bonds, in what he called a “self-generating money machine,” Reuters reported. Michael Hild, who was also Live Well’s chief executive, generated more than $24 million of compensation tied to the scheme, which ran from September 2015 to May 2019, according to federal prosecutors in Manhattan who announced the charges. Founded in 2005, Live Well said it would close on May 3 and terminate its employees, after authorities said the Richmond, Virginia-based company failed to repay lenders sitting on tens of millions of dollars of losses. Live Well later took a $141 million writedown, and was put into chapter 7 bankruptcy on July 1 following a request by three lenders: affiliates of Flagstar Bancorp Inc., Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd and South Korea’s Mirae Asset Financial Corp.
