Kurron Shares of America first made headlines in Bermuda in March 2003 when it was hired to conduct a study of King Edward VII Memorial Hospital and what was St Brendan’s Hospital, now the Mid-Atlantic Wellness Institute.

Nelson Bascome, then health minister, announced the appointment of the health management and consultancy firm, whose headquarters were in Manhattan, which sparked opposition criticism that it had come “out of the blue”.

The firm was paid $450,000 for a report on the two hospitals, according to parliamentary answers, but a far bigger payday was on the horizon for Kurron.

In 2007, the company won a five-year, $13.5 million contract to help the Bermuda Hospitals Board to develop a long-term healthcare strategy for the island, which beat a bid by better-known Johns Hopkins Medicine International.

The decision caused criticism by doctors, who branded Kurron Shares as “minor league”, and claims that Dr Brown had insisted on the appointment against the wishes of the hospitals board.

Kurron had donated $10,000 to a foundation set up by Dr Brown’s wife, Wanda Henton Brown, the previous year to offset the price of expensive tourism events on the island.

Mrs Brown and Kurron’s chairman and chief executive Corbett Price, according to US media reports, had been friends and business associates since at least the 1990s.

When Kurron’s donation to the Tourism Helps Everybody Foundation, and donations to the foundation by other non-Bermudian companies who gained government contracts, were mentioned by Opposition MP Grant Gibbons in the House of Assembly, Dr Brown branded Dr Gibbons a “racist dog”.

Kurron set up an island firm, Kurron Bermuda, in 2007.

The company got permission from Derrick Burgess, when acting finance minister, for its entire share capital to be allotted to Mr Price and his son, Devin Price, both non-Bermudians, according to documents available at the Registrar of Companies.

Kurron Bermuda was dissolved by the Registrar of Companies in 2016 because it was no longer active.

Kurron’s contract with the BHB was terminated by Paula Cox in 2011 — a year and a half early — after she succeeded Dr Brown as premier.

Kurron, which also won a contract with the Ministry of Health to develop the FutureCare health insurance scheme for seniors, appears to no longer exist.

The company website still lists the Bermuda Hospitals Board and government agencies in Bermuda as “current engagements”, but the company’s listed phone number is out of service and US news reports suggest it closed its headquarters in Manhattan in 2011.

In 2013, a WNYC News article described Kurron and Mr Price as having “cut a trail of financial and medical mismanagement, run-ins with regulators and public controversies”.

A BHB spokeswoman said yesterday: “BHB does not have a contract with Kurron and has had no association with the company since the last contract was terminated in 2011.”

Mr Price on social media said he is chairman and CEO of Quantix Health Capital, but Quantix’s phone number is also out of service and e-mails to the company bounced back.

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