Greg Lindberg

Greg Lindberg is an American business owner and founder of the Global Growth Family of Companies.

Education and Early Life

Greg was born in San Mateo, CA in 1970, the youngest of five children. His father was an airline pilot and his mother was a homemaker. He started a high school newspaper the Gryphon’s Tale at Crystal Springs Uplands School in Hillsborough, California and later graduated cum laude. While a freshman at Yale University Greg founded Eli Magazine, a political satire magazine. Later at Yale, Greg started the company that would become the Global Growth group of companies. In 1991 he launched Home Care Week, a reimbursement newsletter for home health agencies that one Global Growth company still publishes today. Greg graduated from Yale magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with an honors economics degree in 1993

File:Greg young.jpg

Lindberg as a young man

Career

Greg has “been in the arena” for over 28 years building the companies that make up what is known today as the Global Growth family of companies. He started a small health insurance compliance and reimbursement newsletter business with $5,000 in 1991 that became the predecessor company to Global Growth.

Greg has completed over 125 acquisitions across the services and knowledge-based sectors of the global economy generating a 35 percent compound annual growth rate on equity capital.

Greg has overcome and survived a brain tumor, and, is currently fighting criminal charges.

The Global Growth Model

"Global Growth is a group of companies with operations in over a dozen countries. We have more than 8,500 employees and 100 business units worldwide. Global Growth serves customers worldwide in the areas of healthcare technology, electronic medical records, unified communications products and services, accounts receivable management services, B2B software and more. Global Growth focuses on high barrier-to-entry, high recurring-revenue businesses with strong underlying market growth potential in global niche markets." -- Global Growth website.

Global Growth’s businesses are forecasting close to $300 million in EBITDA for 2020. Global Growth’s investments in healthcare technology, healthcare services, B2B software, and unified communications as a service (UCaaS), and other high barrier to entry, high-recurring revenue businesses are performing well.

Bribery charges

Greg Lindberg has made several political donations to both Republican and Democrats but overall has become one of the largest donors to North Carolina Republicans.

In April, 2019, Lindberg his two business partners, John Gray and John Palermo Jr., along with chair of the NC Republican Party, Robin Hayes, were indicted for alleged financial crimes to include wire fraud and bribery Lindberg's attorney, Anne Tompkins, told s via email he "is innocent of the charges in the indictment and we look forward to demonstrating this when we get our day in court." Full article here.

In February 2019, the Wall Street Journal published an article about how Lindberg "lent at least $2 billion from those insurers to scores of entities he controlled, using much of it to expand his private holdings, according to interviews, regulatory filings and more than 4,500 internal documents from Mr. Lindberg’s companies." Full article here.

On March 1, 2019, Aaron Tobin, counsel to Greg E. Lindberg, issued the following statement in response to media and other inquiries regarding the February 28, Wall Street Journal article[1]:

“The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article contains numerous inaccuracies and errors in fact”.  As Mr. Tobin wrote to the assistant general counsel of the WSJ last night: Lindberg did not "divert" $2 billion into his alleged private empire, No money was ever invested in "insolvent" affiliates, and Mr. Tobin also noted that the WSJ was given the information below over a week ago however chose to omit these important facts when publishing their story.  See full article here.

In September, 2019, Mr. Lindberg’s attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the indictment. In this filing, Mr. Lindberg states that he told the NC Insurance Commissioner: “We are not asking you for anything special. In fact, we are willing to submit ourselves to tighter standards than the law allows.” Mr. Lindberg sought fairness, not favoritism. He is not averse to tough regulation, and he told the Commissioner as much; he takes issue only with the unfair and retaliatory use of regulatory oversight. See full court document here.

On Oct. 3, 2019, Robert Gaddy, President of Apex International, LLC, issued a statement as a rebuttal for a Wall Street Journal article

piece that sought to vilify Lindberg and shed Lindberg’s personal life in a negative light. 

On Oct. 10, 2019, Lindberg said that contrary to media reports, the bankruptcy filing of Agera Energy, LLC is not a sign of nor will it cause financial stress at companies owned by Greg Lindberg's main holding company Academy Association, Inc. Agera was not an acquisition that Mr. Lindberg's investment team sought out. The investment stake in Agera was inherited as part of an acquisition of a Bermuda insurance company. Mr. Lindberg and his affiliates invested over $100 million in Agera and the decision to no longer support the investment was made with full approval of insurance regulators. See full article here:

On, Oct. 23, 2019, Greg E. Lindberg announced that he retained Louis Freeh, former Federal Judge and FBI Director, and his firm Freeh, Sporkin & Sullivan to examine and render advice regarding financial aspects of Mr. Lindberg’s business entities, with respect to, among other things, assertions made by the North Carolina Insurance Department, as well as those made in recent press accounts, pending litigation, and regulatory matters relating to his insurance companies that are currently in rehabilitation. “Mr. Lindberg has asserted from the outset that the allegations about his insurance companies and him are false and is pleased that Mr. Freeh and his team to have agreed to take on this assignment,” a spokesperson for Mr. Lindberg stated. Full article here.

In November of 2019, Lindberg’s attorneys made an additional filing which stated that: “An obvious potential defense at trial will be that any actions undertaken by Mr. Lindberg were motivated by his desire to mitigate NCDOI’s unfair handling of his business—affected by the seemingly malicious efforts of Mr. Causey, Ms. Obusek, and Deputy Commissioner Michelle Osborne—and that any alleged exchange was a part of a scheme originated and designed by Mr. Causey and his associates. That scheme ultimately was used to improperly induce the government to investigate the defendant in order to remove the defendant as a political opponent of Mr. Causey’s, and to improperly induce the defendants’ actions." See full filing here.

Lindberg’s attorneys also wrote in the filing that “It’s perfectly reasonable for Mr. Lindberg to receive evidence that may indicate Mr. Causey directed Ms. Obusek and others to undermine Mr. Lindberg and his businesses. And it’s vital that defense counsel know if Mr. Causey’s motivation in undermining Mr. Lindberg was the fact that, as Mr. Causey has said publicly, Mr. Lindberg “was a man that was not on my team when I was running,” and “[h]e was a major fundraiser for my opponent.”2 The defense should know if Mr. Causey’s political vendetta against Mr. Lindberg was Mr. Causey’s primary motive in inducing the Government to investigate Lindberg. Evidence of a political vendetta supports the defense that any alleged exchange was part of a plan originated and designed by Mr. Causey to remove Lindberg as a political opponent.” See full filing here.

On Nov 11, 2019, WRAL released an article detailing Lindberg's demeanor and courtroom behavior during several lawsuit depositions. WRAL reported Lindberg's behavior as "evasive" and displayed a "pattern of delay" on several lawsuits including: lawsuit with Tisha Lindberg, Ajay Gupta, and several other businesses. Full article here.

On Nov. 15, 2019, WRAL reported that "Three days after this article posted, a spokesman for Greg Lindberg reached out with the following statement:

"Any accusation that Greg Lindberg has failed to comply with any court order to turn over documents is not accurate – as are any complaints that Mr. Lindberg has provided misleading information. The allegations likely come from disgruntled opponents.

"The Dunhill order referenced is on appeal and Mr. Lindberg is confident that the appeal will be successful. In the Ehmann case, the presiding judge severed the case four years ago. The plaintiff’s discovery efforts were off base in that they related to issues that were not part of the severed issue.  Therefore, the court has not ruled on them. So, while the plaintiff complains that Mr. Lindberg has not turned over any evidence it isn’t because Mr. Lindberg is being evasive – it’s because the judge hasn’t yet ruled on the requests.

"The same issue is affecting the Gupta case. While certain participants are complaining, to the media and otherwise, that Mr. Lindberg is needlessly delaying depositions, the truth is that Mr. Gupta’s legal team has filed several discovery motions – but have yet to have anything granted."

"The CapLOC case is even more clear cut. CapLOC has filed a number of motions to compel their opposition to turn over documents – and the judge has ruled in its favor. Defendants’ legal team has similarly filed several motions but had the judge deny all but one of its requests – and even then, they didn’t get everything they wanted.

"We can go on and on. While Mr. Lindberg’s court opponents have taken to making ad hominin attacks, both in legal papers and in whispers to the media, Mr. Lindberg will continue to fight his battles in court."

On Nov 18, 2019, attorneys for John Gray also filed a motion to dismiss, which stated that “The indictment does not allege that any of the defendants asked Mr. Causey to direct any outcome on any examination or regulatory function. Nor does it allege any lack of cooperation with the examination process or any effort to weaken, suspend, or terminate any examination. And there is no allegation that any defendant had any contact with Division Head 1 regarding an examination or otherwise.” See full court document here.

External Links

Greg E. Lindberg