Troubled UK finance firm Greensill Capital has collapsed into administration after encountering serious financial difficulties, administrators Grant Thornton UK LLP said on Monday, sparking fears for the future of thousands of jobs worldwide.
Greensill specializes in short-term supply chain financing for businesses, but itself faces funding problems, and mounting questions over opaque and complex accounting methods.
Administration caps a crisis-hit month for Greensill, whose collapse risks more than 50,000 jobs — including more than 7,000 in Australia — across the group and its customers.
“Chris Laverty, Trevor O’Sullivan and Will Stagg of Grant Thornton UK LLP were appointed as joint administrators of Greensill Capital (UK) Limited and Greensill Capital Management Company Limited,” Grant Thornton said in a statement on Monday. “The joint administrators are in continued discussion with an interested party in relation to the purchase of certain Greensill Capital assets. As these discussions remain ongoing, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.”
Sources close to the matter confirmed a Financial Times report that US private equity firm Apollo Global Management Inc is seeking to buy parts of the group.
However, the paper said that any Apollo rescue would not include loans made to GFG Alliance Group headed by Indian-British steel billionaire Sanjeev Gupta.
Greensill lawyers appeared before a UK court on Monday, stating in court documents that it has “fallen into severe financial distress” and can no longer pay its debts, the Financial Times said.
Greensill was thrown into crisis a week ago when lender Credit Suisse Group AG suspended US$10 billion of funds after discovering that US$4.6 billion of insurance underpinning Greensill contracts had expired.
Greensill lawyers on Monday said that Credit Suisse had demanded repayment of a US$140 million loan, but had admitted that the firm has “no conceivable way” of repaying the sum.
The financier also has US$5 billion of exposure to GFG Alliance, which is also facing financial difficulty, Greensill lawyers said.
A GFG Alliance spokesman on Monday said that the firm is functioning normally.
Greensill also suffered a heavy blow on Wednesday last week when Germany’s financial watchdog froze the operations of its German banking subsidiary, citing an “imminent risk” of over-indebtedness.
The public prosecutor’s office in Bremen said that it had opened a preliminary probe.
Media reported that the German Financial Supervisory Authority, BaFin, had filed a criminal complaint against Greensill Bank AG over allegations it falsified balance sheets.
BaFin on Wednesday last week froze payments in and out of Greensill Bank, essentially closing it down.
It also expressed concern about accounting irregularities, including dealings with GFG Alliance.
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
BIG BUCKS: Chairman Wei is expected to receive NT$34.12 million on a proposed NT$5 cash dividend plan, while the National Development Fund would get NT$8.27 billion Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday announced that its board of directors approved US$15.25 billion in capital appropriations for long-term expansion to meet growing demand. The funds are to be used for installing advanced technology and packaging capacity, expanding mature and specialty technology, and constructing fabs with facility systems, TSMC said in a statement. The board also approved a proposal to distribute a NT$5 cash dividend per share, based on first-quarter earnings per share of NT$13.94, it said. That surpasses the NT$4.50 dividend for the fourth quarter of last year. TSMC has said that while it is eager
‘IMMENSE SWAY’: The top 50 companies, based on market cap, shape everything from technology to consumer trends, advisory firm Visual Capitalist said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) was ranked the 10th-most valuable company globally this year, market information advisory firm Visual Capitalist said. TSMC sat on a market cap of about US$915 billion as of Monday last week, making it the 10th-most valuable company in the world and No. 1 in Asia, the publisher said in its “50 Most Valuable Companies in the World” list. Visual Capitalist described TSMC as the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry operator that rolls out chips for major tech names such as US consumer electronics brand Apple Inc, and artificial intelligence (AI) chip designers Nvidia Corp and Advanced
Pegatron Corp (和碩), an iPhone assembler for Apple Inc, is to spend NT$5.64 billion (US$186.82 million) to acquire HTC Corp’s (宏達電) factories in Taoyuan and invest NT$578.57 million in its India subsidiary to expand manufacturing capacity, after its board approved the plans on Wednesday. The Taoyuan factories would expand production of consumer electronics, and communication and computing devices, while the India investment would boost production of communications devices and possibly automotive electronics later, a Pegatron official told the Taipei Times by telephone yesterday. Pegatron expects to complete the Taoyuan factory transaction in the third quarter, said the official, who declined to be
RSS