PHILLIPSBURG, KS -- (Marketwire) -- 12/17/08 -- Robert Orr filed personal bankruptcy yesterday after pledging his family fortune trying to save Brooke Capital Corporation and Aleritas Capital Corp. Brooke Capital was an insurance agency franchisor and a public company (AMEX: BCP) of which Orr's family indirectly owned approximately 30%. Aleritas was a finance company specializing in insurance lending and a public company (OTCBB: ARTA) of which Orr's family indirectly owned approximately 29%.

Aleritas loaned money to insurance agencies, then packaged the loans as securities and sold them to Wall Street investors. To enhance the credit quality of these securities, Brooke Capital provided franchising and consulting services to insurance agency borrowers on behalf of the Wall Street investors. The refusal of Wall Street investors to pay servicing fees for the consulting and collateral preservation services provided by Brooke Capital caused the insurance agency franchisor to collapse from cash flow shortages and the finance company to collapse from deterioration of loan quality because the insurance agency franchisor could no longer afford to provide these critical services to the finance company's borrowers. The meltdown of these companies accelerated when a special master, who was appointed by the court to maintain the status quo until Brooke Capital's differences with Wall Street investors were resolved, instead liquidated assets and released insurance agency franchisees from their agreements.

With Brooke Capital in bankruptcy and Aleritas in liquidation, it is unlikely Orr will see repayment of approximately $12,000,000 that his family loaned to the companies in recent months. Another result of the companies' collapse is that Orr will be required to repay approximately $25,000,000 of debt that was personally guaranteed by him as part of Orr's efforts in recent months to turn around the companies.

Orr said, "Last year I retired as a company executive, but I came out of retirement in April of this year to help Aleritas, and later Brooke Capital, through difficult economic times. With the benefit of hindsight, I regret returning as a company executive because the price paid by my family has been extraordinary. I have endured financial ruin and unwarranted personal attacks. As an executive taking over management of these troubled companies just prior to their collapse and as an executive responsible for making the difficult decisions required to turnaround these troubled companies, I have become the target of attack for anyone with a complaint."

Last year, as a result of merging wholly owned Brooke Capital and wholly owned Aleritas into existing public companies, most of the stock of Aleritas and Brooke Capital became directly, or indirectly, owned by public investors.