前首相,スイスの巨大基金,クビを切られたファンド・マネージャ ・・・ オーストラリア人の金融家がこれらすべてをつなぐ。
Lex Greensill は,オーストラリア人の成功物語である。
かつての農夫は,自家用ジェット機に乗り ニューヨーク,ロンドン,シドニーの間を飛び回る大富豪金融家となった。8年前に立ち上げた自分と同名の会社 Greensill は,世界中の 数百万の企業に $500 億以上の融資を提供したと称する
[sic]。Credit Suisse との間には数十億ドルの提携があり,Vodafone, Coca-Cola, General Mills のような一流企業を顧客に持つ。元 UK 首相 David Cameron は同社の顧問であり,Lex Greensill は経済への貢献により大英帝国勲章を女王陛下から授与された。
だが,物議を醸すことで知られる 42 歳の金融の名手の登場には,別の側面がある。最終的に問題とされるのは,重要な提携相手である (顧客資産約 $1,300 億を運用する) スイスの投資会社 GAM を 過去1年で
株価が 80% 下落し,ほとんど破綻に導いた出来事で Greensill が果たした役割が問題となった。オーストラリア人
銀行家と一緒に働いたことのある何人もの元同僚らは,Greensill がチャーミングで説得がうまく,同時に 積極的なリスク・テイカーだと言う。
Greensill の流星のような華々しい登場と 有名人とのコネは,金融危機後の所謂 シャドウバンキング
[影の金融システム] と鏡映しである。供給チェーン金融 ── Greensill が今では リーダーとされるセクター ── は,確立された合法的な事業慣行であるが,その規模の最近の伸びと複合性は,2008 年の金融危機後の大量の規則にも拘わらず 規制されない危険な慣行が ウォール街のビッグネームの支援を得た金融市場で横行するとの懸念を呼んだ。
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Lex Greensill (©Attila Csaszar)
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Lex Greensill は,オーストラリア・ブリスベーン北方の町 Bundaberg の両親のサトウキビ農園で育った。彼は 弁護士としての訓練を受け,クイーンズランド州青果物製造者協会でキャリアを始めた。Greensill のウェブサイトによれば,Lex は "小規模企業の決済の遅れが及ぼす影響" から金融に関心を
持つようになった。
その後,Greensill は UK に移住し,銀行業務にキャリアを求めた。ちょうど世界金融危機が勃発していた頃,彼は Morgan Stanley で波風を立てていた;ファクタリング
[他人が所有する売掛債権を買い取り, その債権の回収を行う金融サービス] あるいは 共有チェーン金融として知られる 比較的平凡な事業をどうにかしてターボチャージしようと考えていた。ファクタリングとは,会社の売掛金 ── 顧客の所有する債権 ── を割り引いて買い取る。顧客は これにより売掛金を早期に回収でき,銀行は 顧客に支払った以上のカネを回収することを期待する。近年は銀行と顧客が さらに複合的な取り引き ── 逆ファクタリング ── を結ぶこともある。これは 顧客が供給業者に発行する手形を銀行が買い取るものである。
Greensill は別の面でも動いていた:買い手が承認し第三者ソフトウェア・プロバイダを通じて裏書された決済用のインボイスを Thunder と呼ばれる特別目的法人にプールした。Thunder はこの資産を基に投資家に債券を発行した。この取り決めは,投資家には着実な利回りを与え,銀行には手数料収入を与え,供給チェーンの "金融と手続きの効率性" を合理化した … と
Financial News が閲覧した Morgan Stanley の極秘文書に書かれている。2009 年初頭までには,Thunder 事業は 5つの企業顧客と 500 社以上の供給業者と関係を持つようになった。そして $5 億以上の社債発行残高があった … と Morgan Stanley 文書は言う。
しかし,Thunder は逆風に巻き込まれた。金融危機の余波を受けて,Morgan Stanley のようなトラブった銀行は バランスシートを引き締め,中核事業と考えられないものをどんどん売却し始めた。Morgan Stanley 文書と 事情に詳しい複数の人によれば,Greensill の上司らも Thunder の売却計画 ── コード名 Project Cloud ── を開始した。彼らは買ってくれそうな人に会ったが,その食欲は思わしくなかった。
Greensill のボス Morgan Stanley は Thuner が売却できないことを悟ると,その後数ヵ月掛けて この部門全体を縮小した。
その年 遅く,Greensill は Citigroup に移った,企業顧客の世界的ネットワークを持つ Citi は,供給チェーン金融にピッタリだった。Greensill のお気に入りのトレンドでもあった:特に UK の政治家たちは 苦しんでいる事業を熱心に支持し,金融危機後の景気低迷を助けてくれた。Greensill は,UK の政治エスタブリッシュメントのトップに喰い込み,当時首相だった (後に彼の顧問になった) David Cameron とコネを作り上げた。
Progress within Citi was not straightforward. He clashed with colleagues, including senior managers, who believed Greensill was frequently trying to push the boundaries on transactions beyond the bank’s risk tolerance, according to people familiar with the matter. Some colleagues also held the view that Greensill was extravagant with expenses. In one incident in 2010, Greensill, after being stranded in Copenhagen overnight due to a cancelled flight, submitted an expense claim for new clothes for about £4,000, which the bank rejected, according to people familiar with the matter.
"Some colleagues referred to Haywood as ‘Paul Tibbets’, after the pilot of the Enola Gay, the aeroplane from which an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, because he made large investments"
An especially controversial episode occurred in 2011. Greensill told senior managers he had set up a deal whereby the UK government would effectively backstop supply chain finance deals the bank set up, limiting the potential downside for Citi, according to people familiar with the proposal. Once the project was up and running, however, senior managers were puzzled, as a succession of US clients signed up rather than the UK businesses they had anticipated, these people said. Greensill explained that the plan still worked if US dollar financing was swapped into sterling. His managers were unimpressed, feeling that they had been misled about the deal and that it was more complex and much riskier than they had previously thought, they added.
By August that year, Greensill had left Citi.
At this point, the Australian decided to set up his own company. There were advantages to this approach. He did not have to navigate the bureaucracy of a major bank. Also, while banks are highly regulated, supply chain finance is not. European regulators recommend that companies disclose details of their supply chain finance arrangements, but it is not compulsory. In the US, the Securities and Exchange Commission provided broad guidance on how to treat supply chain finance for accounting purposes more than a decade ago.
Supported by his family’s assets and a handful of wealthy acquaintances, Greensill got the new company off the ground. He persuaded some former colleagues to join his start-up business too.
For several years, the business — which operates through a network of private entities in a handful of international jurisdictions — remained sporadic and unprofitable and was bleeding cash, according to people familiar with the company and corporate filings. The group’s Australian parent company, Greensill Capital, was supported by more than A$90m in loans from a handful of wealthy board members, including Lex’s former Morgan Stanley colleagues and David Solo, the former chief executive of GAM. By the end of 2016, the group had racked up accumulated losses of A$123m.
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(©Peter Strain)
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At the same time, Greensill’s expansion was hardly curbed by the shortfall: the company acquired a private jet and hired hundreds of staff to work in new offices around the world. Greensill also acquired a controlling interest in NordFinanz Bank, a small, loss-making German lender. Its largest shareholder was Andrew Ruhan, a British entrepreneur and property tycoon, who was also a close personal friend of Greensill’s, according to people familiar with the matter. Greensill paid about A$25m in 2014 for the controlling stake. The bank only had about A$10m in net assets.
A turning point though came via the company’s connection to GAM. Solo — the former GAM chief executive who is on Greensill’s board — has a longstanding relationship with Tim Haywood, one of GAM’s most high-profile fund managers. Their career paths are intertwined. In 2009, Haywood was running a London-based hedge fund called Augustus, which had been spun out of Swiss bank Julius Baer a couple of years earlier. Augustus had amassed about $14bn in assets under management by mid-2008 but then ran into problems due to poor performance. Investors were yanking money from the fund and its AUM fell by about half in six months. Solo’s GAM swept in and bought Augustus for a nominal sum, effectively bailing Haywood out.
A few years later, Haywood was managing GAM’s two Absolute Return Bond funds (ARBF). These funds promised positive returns and “controlled volatility” and invested in a wide range of assets, from relatively straightforward corporate bonds to more exotic investments such as credit default swaps. Haywood oversaw more than $7bn in assets. He had a reputation among colleagues for taking on unusual, large bets. Some colleagues referred to him as “Paul Tibbets”, after the pilot of the Enola Gay, the aeroplane from which an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, because he made large investments, according to people familiar with the matter.
In 2016, GAM and Greensill launched the Luxembourg-domiciled GAM Greensill Supply Chain Finance fund. Haywood was primary sponsor. The fund invested in notes backed by supply chain finance assets sourced by Greensill and insured by a third party. It offered investors modest returns and promised Greensill a steadier stream of revenues than previously. Initially, this fund struggled to generate sufficient client assets as few big corporations agreed to participate, and the fund held more cash than planned, according to people familiar with the matter. But another Greensill connection helped out. Lex Greensill was particularly close to Vodafone’s treasurer, Neil Garrod, according to people familiar with the matter. Soon, Vodafone’s payables made up a significant chunk of the underlying assets in the new fund, and Vodafone became a major investor in the fund too – the investment vehicle was nicknamed the “Vodafund” by some people working close to it. As of December 31, 2018, Vodafone had invested almost $1bn in the fund, according to people familiar with the matter. The fund recently had about $2.4bn in total assets under management.
"In 2010, Greensill, after being stranded in Copenhagen overnight, submitted an expense claim for new clothes for about £4,000, which the bank rejected"
Following the GAM fund, a similar arrangement with the asset management unit at Credit Suisse soon followed. As at GAM, Credit Suisse has access to a large investor base of wealthy and institutional clients, including large pension funds. Within just a couple of years, Credit Suisse’s Greensill supply chain finance funds amassed total AUM of almost $4bn today. Haywood also began investing in Greensill assets directly in his ARBF funds.
Greensill’s results were improving and most of the related party loans, including more than A$12m owed to Solo, had been repaid. In 2017, the group turned its first profit. Greensill was also establishing some blue-chip credentials. Morgan Stanley acted as broker for much of Greensill’s business. Cameron became an informal adviser to the company, attending client meetings. A spokesperson for Cameron confirmed his role at Greensill. In 2017, Lex was made a Commander of the British Empire for services to the economy.
In mid-July 2018, Greensill Capital received a major boost when US-based private equity firm General Atlantic invested $250m in the company, valuing Greensill at about $1.6bn. It was “a fantastic endorsement”, Lex Greensill said at the time.
But just a couple of weeks later, things took a turn for the worse when Greensill was entangled in a crisis at one of its most important partners.
On July 31, 2018, GAM suspended Haywood, citing issues related to “some of his risk management procedures and his record keeping”. GAM said at the time that its probe “has not raised concerns regarding his [Haywood’s] honesty”. GAM later confirmed that Haywood had been the subject of an internal probe for several months following whistleblower allegations. According to documents seen by FN and people familiar with the matter, those concerns were specifically focused on Haywood's relationship with Greensill and investments in Greensill-sourced assets.
Following the whistleblower's allegations, GAM’s management was investigating whether the ARBF funds were too concentrated in Greensill assets; whether Haywood’s investments with GAM represented a conflict of interest; whether Haywood’s relationship with Greensill breached the company policy on gifts and hospitality; and whether the Greensill assets were valued appropriately, among other matters, according to documentation seen by FN and people familiar with the matter.
GAM hired external legal counsel and a specialist asset valuation firm to look into the allegations, and informed several European regulators about the probe, including the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, these people said.
People familiar with the investigation say that, at one point, Haywood had invested about a quarter of one of his funds in Greensill assets. He also invested hundreds of millions of dollars — a large proportion of his funds — in Greensill-sourced assets tied to just one business, GFG Alliance, an industrial conglomerate headed by Indian-born British entrepreneur Sanjeev Gupta, GAM has since disclosed. He invested more than $350m directly into a company called Laufer, which is part of the Greensill group; about a third of that investment was effectively an unsecured loan that funded Greensill’s business.
About $28m was invested in Atlantic 57 Consultancy, a British Virgin Islands-domiciled entity that court documents indicate was a vehicle through which Lex Greensill’s acquaintance Ruhan invested in the Steinway Building, a New York residential tower. People familiar with the investigation said it found that Haywood had taken a personal flight on a Greensill private jet, and that he had accepted an invitation from Greensill to a Buckingham Palace garden party.
GAM’s management shared the findings of its investigation into Haywood’s relationship with Greensill with the FCA, which demanded that the Swiss company take uncompromising action against the star fund manager, FN has previously reported.
Within days, GAM suspended Haywood, and its fortunes began to unravel fast. The company had been going through a years-long overhaul, which had substantially reduced costs and diversified and stabilised revenues. But investors in Haywood’s funds were spooked and scrambled to withdraw their money. GAM responded by liquidating the funds and tried to return money to investors — that meant selling down its assets, including Greensill-sourced assets, as fast as possible.
GAM’s share price tanked and several senior executives left the firm. In February, GAM said it had dismissed Haywood for gross misconduct. Haywood has disputed the decision to fire him. In a recent statement, he said he considered the process by which he was made redundant unfair. “This reinforces my belief that my dismissal from GAM was a foregone conclusion, and that I have been unjustly singled out.”
A spokesperson for Greensill has previously said the issue is an internal matter for GAM.
Last month, GAM gave an update on the liquidation of its ARBF funds. The Swiss company said a GFG Alliance entity had agreed to buy all the outstanding GFG investments held in the ARBF funds by July 15, which would complete the asset divestitures in those funds.
GAM and Greensill continue to operate the GAM-Greensill Supply Chain Finance fund. Several weeks ago, GAM said investors withdrew $4bn from its funds in the first quarter of 2019, citing withdrawals from the GAM Greensill Supply Chain Finance fund among others. A spokesperson for Vodafone said its investment in the GAM-Greensill fund was related to a planned acquisition that was due to complete this summer. The investment represented about 6% of the €18bn the company has raised for the acquisition. Garrod is set to leave the firm, according to people familiar with the matter. The Vodafone spokesperson said he could not confirm any future investment plans.
Some senior executives in the supply chain financing sector worry that fallout from the issue may not be over. A senior executive at a major global bank told FN that some large clients said they do not currently want to be a part of any supply chain finance deals, given the controversy around GAM’s investments with Greensill. Two fixed income investment managers also said some clients recently demanded their money is kept out of supply chain financing vehicles such as those offered by Greensill.
The FCA has received hundreds of pages of documents related to the GAM probe, including documents related to Haywood’s relationship and business with Greensill. The regulator declined to comment for this story.