Credit Suisse Group AG said it suspended a group of private investment funds that contain $10 billion in assets from SoftBank Group Corp. -backed specialty-finance company Greensill Capital.
The Swiss bank’s asset-management arm said it would stop allowing investors to buy into or sell out of the Greensill funds immediately. Credit Suisse manages four private investment funds that rely exclusively on debt-like securities created by Greensill.
The bank said a part of the funds is “currently subject to considerable uncertainties with respect to their accurate valuation.” The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the bank was concerned about Greensill’s exposure to a single client, U.K.-based steel magnate Sanjeev Gupta, according to people familiar with the matter.
U.K.-based Greensill is the brainchild of former Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley financier Lex Greensill. Founded in 2011, Greensill specializes in an area known as supply-chain finance, a form of short-term cash advance that lets companies stretch out the time they have to pay their bills.
Its main financial backer is Japanese tech conglomerate SoftBank and it counts former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron as an adviser. Greensill owns a bank in Germany and does deals that are closer to traditional merchant banking services, such as lending to large investment projects.
