How the Greensill empire was brought down

Skittish insurers, wary fund managers, a suspicious regulator and a sceptical press created a pile of tinder that only needed a few sparks to start a fire.

Lex Greensill’s financial empire has imploded spectacularly in the space of a week. Peter Braig

Hans van Leeuwen and Jenny Wiggins

Mar 5, 2021 – 2.56pm

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Greensill Capital’s demise took just days. Two Swiss financial giants turned off the financial firm’s $US11 billion ($14 billion) funding tap after one of Greensill’s biggest insurers jumped ship and it lost a rapid-fire legal skirmish in Sydney to keep them on board.

German regulators closed the bank that anchors AFR Rich Lister Lex Greensill’s global finance business and a criminal complaint was filed in a German court. One of Greensill’s most lucrative clients, British billionaire Sanjeev Gupta, no longer wants to pay Greensill’s bills.

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Hans van LeeuwenEurope correspondentHans van Leeuwen covers British and European politics, economics and business from London. He has worked as a reporter, editor and policy adviser in Sydney, Canberra, Hanoi and London.