Behind Greensill’s Collapse: Detour Into Risky Loans

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-greensills-collapse-detour-into-risky-loans-11615611953

Excerpt:

Behind Mr. Greensill’s failure: The business went beyond the scope of what it initially set out to do. Many of Greensill’s loans went to a small circle of borrowers close to Mr. Greensill, as well as acquaintances and his biggest outside backers.

A Wall Street Journal review of internal Greensill records, including board minutes and emails, along with interviews with more than a dozen people familiar with Greensill’s business, reveals how the company obscured its riskier loans behind a safe but barely profitable supply-chain finance business.

Greensill took on bigger, riskier long-term loans. In some cases, the loans were given other names before they were sold on to investors in the Credit Suisse funds, obscuring who the borrower was or the type of loan, the Journal found.

Author(s): Duncan Mavin, Julie Steinberg

Publication Date: 13 March 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal