A real estate firm and a US investment group are looking to break up commodities trading firm Liberty Commodities. It is part of GFG Alliance, which relied largely on Greensill to finance its global expansion.
There's more bad news for British-Indian steel baron Sanjeev Gupta. A real estate firm and a US investment group are pushing to break up his Liberty Commodities, leaving the metals magnate, who has been battling creditors for two years, facing a new legal battle.
Liberty Commodities is part of GFG Alliance, which relied largely on Greensill to finance its global expansion, and is facing a series of lawsuits over debts related to the collapse of Greensill in 2021.
«Never Paid a Penny»
A subsidiary of German real estate group Patrizia is suing Liberty Commodities in London's High Court for £8.9 million ($11.3 million), the «Financial Times» (behind paywall) reports. It claims the company «never paid a penny» for a lease it signed in October 2019 for an office in London's exclusive Belgravia district.
White Oak, meanwhile, a San Francisco-based company, claims to have received no money under a receivables financing facility from Liberty Commodities. It now claims that, after accounting for interest and other costs, it's accrued debt of over $190 million.
Citigroup Superseded
The lawsuit follows an out-of-court settlement between Gupta and Credit Suisse. Wealthy Credit Suisse clients invested in his companies in part through a series of funds the bank ran with failed supply chain finance group Greensill Capital.
Citigroup originally petitioned the court in March 2021 to dissolve three of Gupta's UK companies to recover some of the money. The Patrizia subsidiary has taken over Citigroup's role as «petitioning creditor» with White Oak now a «supporting creditor» in the attempt to liquidate Liberty Commodities, it says.
