Met Life to Assume $2 Billion in Annuities Sold by 3 Baldwin Units

An Arkansas judge ruled Friday that Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. will take over the $2 billion in annuities sold to 100,000 policyholders nationwide by three subsidiaries of bankrupt Baldwin-United Corp. that were based in that state.

In issuing the ruling, Pulaski County Circuit Court Judge Perry V. Whitmore said he accepted the New York insurer’s plan in response to the recommendation on June 4 of Arkansas’ insurance commissioner. However, the judge said he found much to praise in a competing offer made by Sun Life Guaranty Corp., a subsidiary of Kaufman & Broad Inc. of Los Angeles.

An Indiana court last April similarly blessed Metropolitan’s “enhanced benefit plan” for a Baldwin subsidiary headquartered there. About 100,000 policies were written by Baldwin’s Arkansas-based operation and another 65,000 by the Indiana operation, a business that Met Life valued at a total of $3.4 billion. Now, courts in both states must approve plans to sell off the assets of the Baldwin-United units and formally order their liquidation.

“We’re ready to act right now, but, given court procedures, it will most likely be a matter of months before the courts act,” William Poortvliet, Metropolitan’s executive vice president, said Friday in a telephone interview.

The financial collapse of Baldwin-United in 1983 was one of the largest bankruptcy law filings in history. Its policyholders stood to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in interest and invested principal. Metropolitan became the lead insurer in developing a rescue plan at the request of the National Assn. of Insurance Commissioners.

Under the plan, Metropolitan will offer policyholders new annuities in exchange for their Baldwin-United policies.

The new policies will offer better earnings rates than they would have otherwise received.