Kalyeena Makortoff Banking correspondent
4 min read
Credit Suisse in the Canary Wharf business district of London in 2021, the year Greensill Capital collapsed. Credit Suisse itself collapsed in 2023.</span><span>Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images</span>" height="768" loading="eager" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==" width="960">
Bosses at Credit Suisse were warned against dealing with the Australian financier Lex Greensill’s eponymous company three years before the collapse of his Greensill Capital, which once employed the former UK prime minister David Cameron as an adviser.
The “character judgment” of senior Credit Suisse managers was challenged in anonymous messages they received as early as 2018, which raised concerns over the Swiss bank’s dealings with Greensill, according to a report by the Swiss regulator Finma, released under a London court order after a request by the Guardian and other media.
The document showed senior managers were warned several times about the risks involved in its business dealings with Greensill and his firm, the 2021 collapse of which contributed to Credit Suisse’s shocking demise in March 2023.
A message from an anonymous tipster raised “strong doubts” over the bank’s strategy of packaging up Greensill’s loans into $10bn (£7.4bn) worth of investable funds for wealthy clients.
Greensill appeared at the high court in London this week as a witness in a month-long trial, in which a former Credit Suisse fund is suing the Japanese tech investor SoftBank for $440m over a complex deal it allegedly coordinated with Greensill Capital before its collapse.
The Finma report, released as part of the trial, detailed the messages sent to Credit Suisse managers. “We also have serious doubts about your character judgment in choosing Greensill Capital as a partner in this field, and even more so in giving them the degree of discretion over your clients’ money which they appear to have,” the message said. The tipster was also concerned that a “large proportion” of those loans were to companies in the metals magnate Sanjeev Gupta’s troubled steel empire.
The message added that the recent collapse of another set of Greensill-backed funds offered by rival asset manager GAM “should be taken as a strong warning … you need to take care”.
One senior manager forwarded the 2018 tipoff to Lex Greensill, adding: “People in CS are receiving anonymous mails … seriously, you have to rethink your communication strategy!”
Greensill Capital, founded in 2011, offered corporate loans, giving companies advances on their invoices in exchange for a fee. But its founder, the Australian melon farmer turned City banker, entered into a series of complex financial agreements and marketed his lender as a tech firm stacked with high-profile advisers including Cameron.
Greensill went on to attract a series of large investors including General Atlantic and SoftBank, whose investments were purportedly meant to expand Greensill’s activities.
