Greensill Nears Sale to Apollo-Backed Athene as Funds Freeze

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Mar 02 2021, 9:58 PMMar 03 2021, 6:57 AMMarch 02 2021, 9:58 PMMarch 03 2021, 6:57 AM

(Bloomberg) -- Greensill Capital is moving closer to a deal to sell its operating business to Athene Holding Ltd. after a swift crisis of confidence in Lex Greensill’s startup lender forced it to seek a sale to avoid collapse.

The deal talks are progressing between Greensill and the combination of Athene and Apollo Global Management Inc., according to people familiar with the matter. Athene is a Bermuda-based annuity seller that’s part-owned by Apollo.

Greensill has entered a “period of exclusivity with a leading global financial institution with a view to concluding a transaction with them this week,” the firm said in a statement Tuesday. Any deal is expected to include “large parts of Greensill’s business and its assets under management,” the company said.

Earlier Tuesday, GAM Holding AG said it will start winding down a fund that invests in loans sourced by Greensill. That came a day after Credit Suisse Group AG froze a group of supply-chain-finance funds that it ran with help from the Australian financier, citing “considerable uncertainty” about the valuations of some of the holdings.

Bond and Credit Company, an Australian division of Tokio Marine Holdings Inc., didn’t renew trade credit insurance on some holdings in the Credit Suisse funds on March 1, according to documents lodged in a court in Sydney. Without the insurance backing up the loans, valuing the securities became difficult and the funds closed to redemptions as a result, according to people briefed on the matter.

The freezes on about $11 billion worth of funds deprived Greensill of large buyers for his assets at the same time as regulators in Germany are putting pressure on his bank to diversify its holdings.

Apollo and Athene may provide funding for loans as part of any deal, and may look to exclude any assets they deem too risky, one of the people said.

A spokesperson for New York-based Apollo declined to comment.

“While the structure of the new business is still being determined, we expect the transaction will ensure the majority of Greensill clients will continue to be funded in the same way as they currently are while also preserving a substantial number of jobs,” Greensill said in the statement.

SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund had already substantially written down its $1.5 billion holding in Greensill, and was considering dropping the valuation to close to zero, people familiar with the matter said Monday. The writedown occurred at the end of last year, said one person.

The unraveling caps three tumultuous years at the firm founded by the 44-year-old financier. Greensill-linked financings also played a role in the demise of a former star bond manager at GAM in 2018.

Lex Greensill rose from working on his family’s melon and sugar cane farm in Australia. His interest in the supply-chain business was fueled early on in his life, when as a teenager, a bad harvest season meant his parents weren’t paid for the crops that they grew. Greensill later built a business at Morgan Stanley in London financing corporate supply chains, and then worked at Citigroup Inc. before starting his own company in 2011.

This week marks a stark fall for Greensill the firm, which in October had been considering a capital raising that would have valued it at $7 billion. At the time, the firm said that the fundraising would help boost growth. Still, controversy has followed the fast-growing firm for several years.

Read more: Greensill Bank Looks to Raise Cash, Cut Risk to Sanjeev Gupta

German financial regulator BaFin has appointed a special representative to oversee day-to-day operations of Greensill Bank, according to a person familiar with the matter. It could impose a freeze on payments in and out of the bank, said the person.

BaFin has been pressuring the bank to reduce the concentration of assets linked to U.K. industrialist Sanjeev Gupta, Bloomberg reported in August. The bank has been seeking to raise money and cut its exposure to companies linked to Gupta, people familiar with the matter have said.