Once again, @chamath’s annual letter inadvertently showing the value of a good editor.

You can replace this whole paragraph with: “We got margin called”

(h/t @ShitFund) FLASHBACK: When the FT asked in 2020 whether he had taken out a loan to finance his $100mn investment in Virgin Galactic, Palihapitiya denied it was the case, writing: “That is NOT correct”.

ft.com/content/e73624…

Nearly four years after the FT first exposed the shenanigans going on at Sanjeev Gupta's Wyelands Bank, the PRA has finally censured the bank for "significant regulatory failings"

bankofengland.co.uk/news/2023/apri… We first exposed that Gupta was using Wyelands to extensively finance his creaking industrial empire way back in the summer of 2019 ft.com/content/54f7c0…

Big problem with AT1 is that it's designed for a world where a failing bank's capital gradually runs down and then writedown tops it back up.

But banks tend to fail due to liquidity long before this. @TomHale_ identified this in the wake of Banco Popular ft.com/content/e1c175… It means the two times we've had AT1 writedowns in Europe (Popular and Credit Suisse) the banks both had capital well above the writedown triggers.

I think this leads to authorities hammering liquidity shaped pegs into capital shaped holes when justifying why writedown happened

ANDREW BAILEY LAUNCHES SPECIAL MONETARY OPERATION

ft.com/content/06aafc… on a serious note: did the BOE seriously just announce bond buying minutes after the DMO closed book on a Gilt syndication??????

is this an intentional freebie to the guys who put in orders? or just typical BOE and Treasury not being at all joined up?

Happy "Harper Stern's half a yard option trade pays out day" to all those who celebrate!

ft.com/content/65713f… cc @daniburgz

https://twitter.com/daniburgz/status/1573273761616658434?t=bsmqpD3tqV-J_bExQX9kPw&s=19

Another Sunday, another unmissable story from @Gabriel_Pogrund on alleged political corruption

What does it say about Liz Truss's judgement that she appointed Mark Fullbrook to No 10 even after his involvement in the Herrera affair was made public? (1/3)
thetimes.co.uk/article/no-10-… Firstly, the great @cynthiao and colleagues blew apart that US authorities had charged a major Tory donor, alleging that he illegally provided campaign donations to a former governor of Puerto Rico in a scheme to remove a senior banking regulator (2/3)
ft.com/content/7144a1…

On the back of our story on Everton-owner Farhad Moshiri and the Liver Building, a case study in why we badly need greater transparency in the British property market...

ft.com/content/8d620d… The fact it's really bloody difficult to establish who owns property in the UK has come under renewed focus given the bout of sanctions against oligarchs

This @GeorgeNHammond piece on Moshiri's sanctioned business associate Usmanov is a great illustration
ft.com/content/69bfee…

Remember last month when we explained how Credit Suisse had securitised its yacht and jet loans to oligarchs and tycoons?

Turns out the bank didn't like the publicity: it's now asking investors to destroy the documents citing a “data leak to the media”

ft.com/content/bfea00… Original story here.

It revealed that that a third of CS's yacht/jet defaults in 2017/2018 were “related to US sanctions against Russian oligarchs”. Prior reports indicate that Oleg Deripaska & others terminated private jet leases with the bank back then ft.com/content/1a09d4…

UKRAINE TO ISSUE WAR BONDS TO FUND ITS ARMED FORCES IN BATTLE AGAINST RUSSIA

UKRAINE HOSTING CALL WITH DEBT INVESTORS AT 4PM LONDON TIME

(full to story to come) Full story now up on FT live blog
ft.com/content/dfa82f…

Last March, as Greensill Capital unravelled, @Michael_Pooler, @sylviapfeifer, @PickardJE and I revealed that Sanjeev Gupta’s metals plants had missed payments to UK tax authorities.

This week, HMRC has filed winding up petititons against them ft.com/content/276d56… Our original March 2021 scoop here. Updates on the latest story to come. ft.com/content/cb7198…

💥 The auditor of Sanjeev Gupta's Liberty Commodities has been placed under investigation by the UK accounting regulator.

Story from @_MODwyer and me on the newly announced probe into HW Fisher's audit of the metals magnate's trading arm 👇ft.com/content/9868a9… HW Fisher is one of Gupta’s longest standing auditors, having audited Liberty Commodities since the late 90s. It previously carried out scores of audits for other Gupta companies.

The mid-sized auditor also used to stamp his accounts with this seal touting their "creativity"

Amazing comedy from RBC this AM: In our view, Softbank's investment in THG (6.6% stake), its recent board appointment (in October) and strategic partnership with THG Ingenuity, suggest that SoftBank will not walk away from its deal with THG

This is why I think they're v wrong... First of all, if you're new to THG, the piece @jyoti_mann1, @ajb_powell & I did on yday's share price crash a good place to start. A lot of context on founder Matt Moulding's paranoid style etc ft.com/content/f4ed21…

💥GREENSILL/CAMERON LATEST:

David Cameron successfully lobbied Lloyds Bank to reverse a decision to cut ties with the ailing Greensill Capital, appealing to a board member whom he had ennobled while prime minister.

@FT story w/ @sjhmorris & @PickardJE ft.com/content/a71460… As Greensill teetered on the brink of bankruptcy, Cameron appealed to Lloyds board member Lord Lupton to stop the bank from cutting it adrift.

Cameron handed him the peerage in 2015, while he was Tory party treasurer. The banker has donated £3m+ to party ft.com/content/a71460…

CEO of a $50bn company hasn't heard of the bond market

https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1435439543692365828

Just absolutely wild that the SEC might think that little slips of digital paper entitling the holder to "yield" are securities

Lex Greensill and the @BritishBBank have both refused to reveal who received taxpayer-backed covid loans.

So we'll just have to do it.

Surprise, surprise: every CLBILS loan Greensill provided went to companies linked to Sanjeev Gupta

w/ @OlafStorbeck
ft.com/content/386264… @Michael_Pooler and I first exposed last year that multiple companies linked to Gupta were drawing covid loans thru Greensill

Back then we named two borrowers: Aar Tee (owned by an associate) and Simec (owned by his father)

Today we reveal the other six ft.com/content/9c12a4…

Greensill's administrator has started looking at invoices backing Sanjeev Gupta's loans. It has contacted the companies listed as his customers.

Some of them have not only disputed the invoice, they've denied ever doing business with the steel magnate ft.com/content/fe234f… It's been great to see interest in the Greensill and Gupta fiasco explode beyond the confines of the business pages.

But I'm not sure much of the mainstream media has picked up on the significance of @cynthiao and my latest story. Let me explain.

BREAKING: Sanjeev Gupta has been hit with winding-up orders from investors, legal action that threatens to bring down the empire of the “saviour of steel”.

Citi filed a flurry of applications in London’s insolvency court against several of his businesses

ft.com/content/05254a… Citi is acting in its capacity as trustee on investment products sold by Greensill Capital, of which the main investor is the Credit Suisse SCF funds

London courts have not yet made these insolvency applications public.

Details w/ @kayewiggins, @OwenWalker0 & @sjhmorris

Massive news: Credit Suisse Asset Management suspends its supply chain finance funds, the $10bn fund range linked to Greensill Capital. More to follow...... Credit Suisse: “a certain part of the [funds’] assets is currently subject to considerable uncertainties with respect to their accurate valuation"

@Michael_Pooler and I dug deep into one of the fund's most puzzling assets last year ft.com/content/dcc180…

So it feels like the right time to discuss the harassment I've encountered covering French supermarket group Casino.

I've always been loath to discuss it, because it's incredibly low level compared to what I understand took place here, but I feel somewhat of an obligation to now

https://twitter.com/BondHack/status/1296807190729236480

If you investigate or criticise one of France's largest grocers you can expect to face intimidation and/or surveillance.

I'm not saying this is orchestrated by Casino. But it happens. Most famous example is with short seller Carson Block of @muddywatersre ft.com/content/f093d3…

2017: Moody's awards Steinhoff Baa3 rating. Less than a year later company discloses massive accounting irregularities.

2019: Moody's awards Wirecard Baa3 rating. Less than a year later company discloses massive accounting irregularities. One very obvious thing to note about Wirecard's €500m bond sale, which Moody's gave the rating for in September 2019: the rationale for it never made any sense.

Wirecard was reporting €3.3bn of cash and cash equivalents at the time with no material debt maturities until 2024.

Stop what you are doing and read @harrydemps's story about Aim-listed African oil company Lekoil getting fake sheikh'd immediately

ft.com/content/f11792… The website of the consultant -- Seawave Invest -- that brokered the fake loan is incredible seawave-invest.com/index/