The Australian company that sat atop the globe-spanning Greensill finance empire will be wound up owing $4.9bn allowing liquidators to investigate its collapse.
At a meeting on Thursday, creditors of Greensill Capital voted 23 to 0 – with three abstentions – in favour of winding up the company.
Liquidators from accounting firm Grant Thornton have previously said areas requiring further investigation include hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions between Greensill Capital and a trust controlled by Peter Greensill, the brother of company founder and Bundaberg sugar farmer Lex Greensill.
The investigations are also likely to include grilling the directors and former directors of the company – who include Lex Greensill and former senior British public servant Bill Crothers – under oath in court as part of liquidators’ examinations.
A loan to Peter Greensill grew by US$244m in just three months between October and December 2019, the liquidators, Matthew Byrnes, Philip Campbell-Wilson and Michael McCann, said in a report to creditors this month.
“Several transactions totalling US$174m then appear to be transferred out with the narration of ‘Payment of proceeds PG Family Trust’ or similar,” they said.
“Management has indicated these transactions in part relate to the sale of shares by Peter Greensill, however, at this stage we are not in possession of sufficient documentation to confirm.”
The 23 creditors voting for the move were owed a total of $1.7bn while the three abstaining creditors were owed a total of $2.96bn.
Greensill Capital itself had few assets apart from its interest in the group’s operating businesses in the UK and Europe, meaning any return to its creditors will largely depend on what can be recovered there.
The UK business is also at the centre of an inquiry ordered by the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, into lobbying carried out by Greensill adviser and former PM David Cameron.
As the Guardian has previously reported, in addition to lobbying governments, Cameron’s activities while at Greensill included meeting with an Australian insurance executive named in legal action related to the group’s sudden collapse in March.
Creditors of Greensill Capital also voted on Thursday to form a committee of inspection to oversee the work of the liquidators.
It will include Greensill’s major backers, Credit Suisse and Japanese venture capital group Softbank, as well as representatives of German banks that have made a claim of €2bn ($3.15bn).
Greensill owned a German bank and the claim represents an estimate of how much it owes under the country’s deposit protection scheme.
Also on the committee will be representatives of the Peter Greensill Family Trust, Greensill’s employees and vendors of a company called Earnd that the group owned who are still owed money due to the sale.
Greensill’s collapse has thrown into doubt the financing of steel magnate Sanjeev Gupta’s empire, which includes mills in the UK and Australia.
Gupta has insisted he can refinance debts owed to Greensill, which he disputes, and Australian governments have made encouraging noises about bailing out the steel mill in Whyalla, South Australia, if he cannot.
However, they have stopped short of guaranteeing they will rescue the mill.