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David Cameron has He defended pressure on UK ministers and officials on behalf of Greensill Capital, emphasizing that the company was in favor of the economy rather than retaining the value of its stock options.
The former prime minister, giving his first public comments on Greensill since the fall of March, denied how much money the supply chain finance company was on the way to earning before the administration.
Industry data told the Financial Times that Cameron owned shares close to 1 percent of Greensill’s value. The company was valued at $ 7 billion at one point.
But Cameron told the House Treasury Committee that any potential suggestions from Greensill for him are “completely absurd.” He declined to say what the actual figure was, but said he had stock options and was paid “much more than he earned as prime minister.”
He added that he had “significant economic investment in Greensill’s future”.
Cameron put pressure on several ministers and officials, including Treasury officials, on 56 occasions, trying to secure access to Greensill the government-run Covid-19 two-debt scheme.
After three months of talks, the Treasury decided in mid-2020 that it was not interested in Cameron’s proposals.
Conservative chairman of the Finance Committee Mel Stride said Cameron may have been motivated to “scare” contacts in the early spring of the coronavirus crisis in the spring of 2020 because he realized “the chance to make a lot of money”. he was under threat ”.
The former prime minister said: “We had a very good idea of the motivation to contact the government to extend credit to businesses.”
Strid asked if Cameron needed to know when Greensill was in trouble when concerns about the company arose, including May 2020 Financial Times Report.
But Cameron said he did not realize the company had serious difficulties until December 2020. “I didn’t believe it in March or April[2020]. . . Greensill was in danger of falling. “
Angela Eagle, a Labor committee member, said some of Cameron’s messages to ministers and officials seemed “more like harassment than lobbying”.
But Cameron defended his lobbying, saying Treasury officials did not consider it “inappropriate” for the “heart attack” that occurred in the UK at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The reason for its “sustainability” was that financial technology companies like Greensill “didn’t understand most people well,” he added.
Cameron confirmed that he attended Greensill’s board of directors on a regular basis, despite not being a director of the company, nor in the day-to-day running of the business.
“I would attend council meetings, listen to arguments, make contributions, especially on geopolitical issues,” he told lawmakers. “I was not involved on the credit committee, the risk committee or the audit committee.”
Cameron also tried to gain clients in Greensill and helped build relationships with important clients.
The road to the fall of Greensill began in September 2020 when Tokyo Marine, its main insurer, announced that it was withdrawing coverage within six months.
Cameron said he was unaware of the move, even though he attended board meetings and listened to the company’s internal podcast.
The former prime minister accepted that Greensill had an excessive “customer concentration” with GFG, A metal group led by Sanjeev Gupta Industrial.
He also said that reading An is “very disturbing” FT report The companies listed in the Gupta loan documents refused to do business with GFG.
But Cameron defended Greensill’s practices. “Just because the business goes to the administration doesn’t mean that everything about it was wrong,” he said. “It doesn’t mean it’s all been a huge scam.”
Cameron said he has written rules for publicizing any meeting between ministers and lobbyists as prime minister, but not about text and phone calls.
In an initial note to the commission, Cameron said he had not violated the rules, but admitted that “the prime minister is in a different category” in terms of conduct after leaving office.
He therefore made the mistake of lobbying ministers and officials instead of writing a formal letter via text message, he said.
Cameron said it is “very disappointing” to work for a bankrupt company.
He later told the Commons Public Accounts Committee that it was Cabinet Secretary Jeremy Heywood who brought Greensill to Whitehall in 2011 to advise the government on supply chain finance, which led to a pharmacy loan program.
Prior to 2016, Lex Greensill said he had met the company’s founder only twice and had no role when Greensill Capital got a pharmaceutical contract in 2018. “That’s to say, because six years ago I was planning your wedding because I benefited from it when I married your ex-partner six years later.”
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