The former City minister Lord Myners secretly explored a potentially lucrative board-level role at Greensill Capital after publicly raising concerns about the now-defunct lender at the centre of a Whitehall lobbying storm.
Emails seen by the Guardian reveal how Myners, who has been an outspoken critic of Greensill and its lobbying of senior government officials, was for months in 2019 courted by its chief executive, Lex Greensill.
The emails show Myners exchanging numerous emails with Greensill, inquiring about the financial package he might receive as a director at Greensill Capital, and heaping praise on the firm’s chairman, Maurice Thompson, whom he described as “intelligent” and “charming”.
The correspondence suggests Lex Greensill may have been seeking to co-opt and possibly neutralise an early critic of his company by seducing him into lucrative job.
In a statement to the Guardian, Myners conceded he had discussed a position on Greensill Capital’s board but said he never actually intended to take up the job. Instead, he described his conversations as an “unsophisticated” ruse to find out more information about the company.
“I was hoping to get more insights into his business management and the sort of money he was willing to throw at somebody,” he said. The discussions are understood to have gone on for at least two months.
Myners has had an esteemed career at the pinnacle of business, media and politics, with stints as chair of Marks & Spencer, a member of the court of the Bank of England, chair of the Guardian Media Group and financial services secretary to the Treasury in Gordon Brown’s government.
Quick GuideWhat is the Greensill lobbying scandal?
Show
What is Greensill Capital?
Set up by the Australian financier Lex Greensill, the firm specialises in supply-chain finance, which settles business bills immediately for a fee, assisting with the issue of late payments. Greensill began working with the NHS as part of Citibank in 2012, but then set up his own firm. This collapsed in March.
How is David Cameron involved and what did he do?
Cameron was prime minister when Greensill started to seek government work, although the Australian was reportedly first brought in by Jeremy Heywood, who was cabinet secretary at the time. But in 2016, after leaving office, Cameron became an adviser to Greensill Capital. He was given share options reportedly worth tens of millions of pounds.
Last year he sent “multiple” texts to Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, and “informally” phoned two other Treasury ministers, asking for Greensill Capital to get the largest possible allocation of government-backed loans under the Covid corporate financing facility, or CCFF. He also lobbied a No 10 aide, and in 2019 took Greensill to a “private drink” with Matt Hancock, the health secretary.
What was the government response?
Text replies from Sunak in 2019, released after a freedom of information request, show that in April last year the chancellor told Cameron he had “pushed the team” in the Treasury to see if he could arrange full access to CCFF loans. Other released documents show Treasury officials had a series of meetings with Greensill Capital but eventually refused it access to the CCFF. The company was later accredited to the coronavirus large business interruption loan scheme (CLBILS), handing it the ability to offer government-backed loans of up to £50m.
What else happened?
Greensill became so embedded within Cameron’s Downing Street; he had a No 10 business card calling him a “senior adviser” and was nominated by Haywood for a CBE.
The government’s chief commercial officer, Bill Crothers, began working as an adviser to Greensill Capital in 2015 – while still employed in the civil service. Remarkably, he was given official approval to do this. Boris Johnson has declined to rule out the possibility that more officials could have been connected to the company.
What are the concerns?
There are questions over why the government, which does not have cashflow problems, needed to use supply chain finance.
Cameron’s role is under particular scrutiny. He appears to have used personal contacts to seek preferential treatment for a company in which he had a financial stake.
Sunak’s pledge that he had “pushed the team” to help also raised eyebrows.
Finally, the dual role of Crothers has prompted new worries about a revolving door between Whitehall and private companies that then benefit from government contracts.
Peter Walker Political correspondent
In recent weeks he has acquired a reputation as critic-in-chief of Greensill, winning plaudits for raising concerns about the lender as early as June 2019 and speaking out about its lobbying activities following its collapse.
Last week, he said the Greensill controversy was “one of the most significant financial scandals in the UK for the last 20 years”. However, he has been less vocal about his own discussions with Lex Greensill about serving on his board.
Greensill’s attempt to woo Myners took place weeks after the cross-bench peer submitted a question in the House of Lords, asking the government if it would investigate a Greensill fund. His intervention was noticed by Greensill Capital, which was a client of the public relations firm Edelman UK, which is chaired by Myners.
Edelman arranged a meeting between Myners and Greensill, which is understood to have taken place in July 2019 and lasted just over an hour. According to Myners, at the end of the meeting Greensill asked if he would be interested in serving as a board director. Myners said that, during the meeting, he “firmly” responded that he was not interested in the job.
However, the emails seen by the Guardian show he was still expressing an interest in the role two months later.
In one email, Myners updated Greensill on a breakfast meeting he had just had with Thompson. “It was a very helpful engagement,” Myners wrote. “I find Maurice to be informed, intelligent, engaged and charming. You are fortunate to be working together.”
Greensill invited Myners for dinner and offered him access to Greensill Capital’s “data room”, which would allow him to access the company’s confidential financial information. Myners replied in an email with possible dinner dates, adding: “Rather than waste your time: let me know your thoughts on ‘economics’.”
The term “economics” was a reference to the share options Myners might be offered if he took the board role.
The following day Myners emailed a Greensill Capital employee declining access to the data room, and repeating his interest in the role. “I don’t need data room access before dinner,” he said. “The information I am seeking is on the role he has in mind for me, time commitment and package.”
The emails raise questions about the accuracy of previous accounts Myners has given to the BBC and the Guardian about his meeting with the financier.
In a BBC interview earlier this month, Myners said his July 2019 meeting with Greensill ended with the financier saying “he thought my questions were very good and would I like to think about joining his board of directors. So I said no, that was not the purpose of my attendance.”
Contacted by phone last week, Myners provided the Guardian with a similar account of his July meeting with Greensill.
“The meeting ended with Greensill saying: you’re obviously very well informed on these things, I’ve been very impressed by your questioning, would you like to join the board of Greensill? To which I said that’s very kind of you but I’m pretty full up at the moment and not looking for any jobs,” he said.
Informed this week that the Guardian had information about his ongoing discussions with Greensill and Thompson in September 2019, Myners said in an emailed statement that he never intended to take the job.
“Over the summer of 2019, I decided that I could not let the issue of Greensill go and so took it upon myself to utilise Mr Greensill’s offer of speaking to his colleague Mr Thompson about the company so I could build a fuller picture, given my concerns about the sustainability of the business model. I used Mr Greensill’s open invitation to join the board as a pretence to do so.”
Myners said he never got into “specifics” about the job or remuneration package with the Greensill or Thompson. He said he “can only guess at” Greensill’s motives in seeking to recruit him, and cancelled the dinner with him “as I could see no point in taking it further”.
“Given that it must have been evident by then that I had serious concerns about Mr Greensill’s business – as I had clearly expressed in my meeting with him – it is inconceivable that I would have contemplated joining him but equally understandable why I should continue to seek information about the business model.”
A spokesperson for Edelman said: “Greensill was a client from April 2019 to June 2020. At the request of the client we connected Greensill with Lord Myners. We did not attend the subsequent meeting nor seek to influence the outcome of the meeting.”
Greensill Capital did not respond to a request for comment. The company’s administrator declined to comment. Thompson has been approached for comment.