Fund manager failed to declare benefits from Greensill, says UK regulator

theguardian.com:

Fund manager failed to declare benefits from Greensill says UK regulator” or “Fund manager failed to declare benefits from Greensill to GAM, says UK regulator

A star fund manager who invested £1.5bn of his clients’ money in the scandal-hit Greensill Capital failed to report a dinner at Buckingham Palace, a £15,000 private jet trip to Sardinia, or secret fees and share options offered to his company by the since-collapsed lender, an investigation by the UK City regulator has revealed.

The details emerged in final notices given to Swiss asset manager GAM and its former top fund manager, Tim Haywood, who will pay fines of £9.1m and £230,000 respectively for their failures. Both qualified for a 30% discount by agreeing to resolve the cases at an early stage, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) revealed on Wednesday.

GAM, which has significant operations in London, sacked Haywood in July 2018 with little explanation, causing shocked investors to withdraw their money from the absolute return bond funds he managed. His fund had invested in some of the debt issued by Greensill, although it returned all money to investors before Greensill collapsed in 2021.

Greensill, which employed former prime minister David Cameron as an adviser, collapsed early last year after investors lost confidence, in part because of its deep exposures to Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG metals empire, including Liberty Steel and major aluminium and mining assets.

Haywood first invested GAM money in assets created by Greensill in 2014, and by 2018 GAM’s investments had reached £1.5bn.

The FCA found that Haywood had breached GAM’s gifts and entertainment policy, by failing to declare the personal benefits he was receiving from Greensill, including “attendance at a charity