Sportscover Australia’s parent company, Wild Goose Holdings (WGH), has gone into voluntary administration – but the specialist underwriting agency’s operations will not be affected.

Administrator David Quin, from PCI Partners, told insuranceNEWS.com.au the move “is not related to Sportscover Australia and it does not affect their operations”.

WGH owns 100% of Sportscover Australia, as well as Sportscover’s European operations. It is believed to also have shareholdings in other businesses across different industries.

Sportscover founder and Chairman Peter Nash told insuranceNEWS.com.au this afternoon the voluntary administration “relates back to the dim and distant past with our syndicate”. He declined to comment further at this stage.

In 2014 Sportscover agreed to sell control of its Lloyd’s managing general agency, Syndicate 3334, to Hamilton Insurance.

Sportscover Australia CEO Simon Allatson told insuranceNEWS.com.au that while the latest development is “very unfortunate” it “does not impact on our business”.

“For as long as I have been CEO we have been very profitable and serving the needs of the market very well,” he said.

“This issue has nothing to do with us at all and is not of our making.”

Australian Securities and Investments Commission documents confirm the WGH directors as Mr Nash and his son Christopher, both of Lysterfield, Victoria, and Brian Woodhead, of the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora.

Hollard owns a minority shareholding in the company, but is not represented on the board. WGH’s registered address is Wellington Road, Mulgrave, Victoria.

Mr Quin says it is too early to indicate how the situation will be resolved. A first meeting of the creditors takes place in Melbourne on Friday. “It is still being investigated and it will be in the hands of the creditors.”

Sportscover Australia also released a statement today to reassure clients and partners that the WGH matter does not affect “day-to-day operations”.

“Our binders for liability, personal accident, contingency and property remain in place with our partners within Lloyd’s and we will continue to support the broker market in providing our sports and leisure products as we have for the past 33 years,” the statement said.

“As testament to our ongoing commitment to the market, we will shortly formally announce the addition of cyber insurance to the sports sector, fully underwritten by Sportscover Australia on behalf of its partners in Lloyd’s.”

Mr Allatson took over as CEO in 2017 following the departure of David Lamb the previous year.

Sportscover said at the time that Mr Lamb was dismissed “for performance and misconduct issues”, but he disputed that, saying he was confronted after raising concerns about the company.