Greensill's supply-finance empire collapsed in days, freezing $10B of Credit Suisse funds

Greensill Capital, founded in 2011 by Australian financier Lex Greensill, built a fast-growing business in supply-chain finance — lending against companies' unpaid invoices so suppliers could get paid early. The model attracted big backers: in 2019, SoftBank's Vision Fund invested $800 million, and Greensill partnered with Credit Suisse to run billions of dollars of supply-chain-finance funds sold to investors.

Fueled by the SoftBank money, Greensill expanded rapidly, more than doubling its staff to over 1,000 by early 2021 and delaying an IPO. But beneath the growth, the business was concentrating risk: a large share of its financing was tied to a small number of customers (notably the Gupta family's GFG Alliance), and questions mounted about the quality and concentration of the loans it was packaging and selling.

In early 2021, the structure began to fail. Credit Suisse froze and then wound down roughly $10 billion of supply-chain-finance funds linked to Greensill, citing concerns about the underlying assets and insurance. Key financing and insurance lapsed, and on March 8, 2021, Greensill Capital filed for insolvency protection. The collapse, which happened with startling speed, wiped out a company that had been valued in the billions and triggered investigations and recriminations across the financial world.