FG Financial Group, Inc (FGF) Announces CFO Retirement; Hassan R. Baqar Appointed as new CFO

FG Financial Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: FGF) (the “Company”), a reinsurance and investment management holding company focused on opportunistic collateralized and loss capped reinsurance, while allocating capital to SPAC and SPAC sponsor-related businesses, today announced that John S. Hill, Chief Financial Officer of FG Financial Group since the founding of the Company, has decided to retire effective August 6. Mr. Hill will be succeeded by Hassan R. Baqar who will become CFO of FG Financial Group effective August 6. The Company also announced that Brian Bottjer has been appointed Chief Accounting Officer.

Larry Swets, the Company’s Chief Executive Officer, commented, “First and foremost, I would like to congratulate John Hill and thank him for his numerous contributions to FG Financial Group during his tenure as Chief Financial Officer. John was with us at our founding and during his tenure he has played an important role in a number of the company’s strategic and financial business initiatives. We wish him a happy and well-deserved retirement.”

Mr. Baqar joins FG Financial with over 20 years of experience in financial services with considerable experience in the reinsurance and special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) industries. Mr. Baqar has served as the founder and managing member of Sequoia Financial LLC, a financial services and advisory firm, since 2019. Mr. Baqar has also served as Chief Financial Officer of Insurance Income Strategies Ltd., a Bermuda based reinsurance company since 2017, as a director of GreenFirst Forest Products Inc. (TSXV: GFP) since 2019, as Chief Financial Officer of GreenFirst from 2016 to 2020 and as a director of Fundamental Global Reinsurance Ltd. since June 2020. Mr. Baqar was recently Chief Financial Officer of FG New America Acquisition Corp., a SPAC that concluded a successful business combination with OppFi, Inc in July 2021. He is currently serving as Chief Financial Officer of SPAC Aldel Financial Inc. (NYSE: ADF). He also holds a Certified Public Accountant designation.

The Company also announced that Brian Bottjer has been appointed Chief Accounting Officer. Since 2014, Mr. Bottjer has been a Senior Vice President at FG Financial. From 2006 to 2014, he was controller at Biovest International. Previously he served as Assistant Controller at Stewart Title and began his career as Account Supervisor at Raymond James Financial from 2000 to 2005.

Mr. Swets continued, “We are extremely excited to announce Hassan Baqar as our new Chief Financial Officer. Hassan brings a wealth of valuable knowledge to this role including extensive reinsurance and SPAC experience. I have worked with Hassan directly for many years and look forward to FG Financial benefiting from his broad experience and business acumen. We are also pleased to appoint Brian Bottjer to the position of Chief Accounting Officer. Brian has been an integral member of the team since 2014, has deep knowledge of our business and finances and will play an important role at the company as we grow.”

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