Carlyle Portfolio Company: Insurance and Crisis Recovery
How John S. Kim led the response to two catastrophic factory fires in Vietnam and negotiated an insurance recovery exceeding the maximum projected by the broker, Marsh.
The matter
Two catastrophic factory fires struck the company in Vietnam — one in Hanoi, another near Ho Chi Minh City. As General Counsel of the portfolio company — a company held in a Carlyle fund's portfolio, not the Carlyle Group itself — John S. Kim personally led the response.
The work
He traveled repeatedly to Vietnam to assess and substantiate the losses, which involved finished garments, raw materials, machinery, equipment and the factory facilities themselves. He coordinated with the insurance broker Marsh — the broker placing and advising on the cover, not the insurer paying it — and negotiated directly with the Vietnamese state-owned insurers who carried the risk. The claim covered both property damage and business interruption.
The outcome
The recovery exceeded the maximum figure Marsh had projected. It was a negotiated insurance recovery, not a judicial judgment.
Why it was demanding
Insurance recovery at this scale is won on documentation rather than argument. What burned had to be established after the fact, in a foreign insurance market, against insurers with every reason to value it conservatively — while the business was simultaneously trying to resume production.
Relevance today
The Law Office of John S. Kim advises as outside general counsel and on dispute strategy, including the loss documentation and negotiation that decide what a company actually recovers after a serious operational event.