Greensill Capital’s creditors have voted to liquidate the company, including debts of $4.9 billion.

The vote to liquidate was made in an online meeting this week, after no buyers emerged for the business that went into administration on March 8.

This time last year, Greensill had engaged in $143 billion of financing for 10 million customers in 175 countries. The company was valued at $9 billion before a series of crises brought about by the effects of COVID-19 on its major customers led credit insurers and investment banks to pull the plug.

There have been various attempts to sell parts of the Greensill business, but none of these have resulted in a transaction.

The main creditors are seeking significant amounts, including the Association of German Banks($2.9 billion), Credit Suisse ($117 million), insurance brokers Marsh ($3.9 million), Omni ($7.7 million), the Peter Greensill Family Trust  ($78 million), and two SoftBank funds ($574 million and $922 million).

Japanese insurer Tokio Marine and the Australian Tax Office were listed in administrators' reports as “yet to be quantified”.

Shifting from administration to liquidation will give investigators from Grant Thornton greater powers to look into Greensill’s collapse. The administrators are expected to examine whether former directors or officers of the company committed any offences that ASIC needs to know about. 

Grant Thornton should also look at the group’s access to external funding and the solvency position of Greensill’s main UK operating business. This should help answer questions about whether it traded while insolvent.

When Greensill’s Australian parent filed its annual report for the year ending December 2019, it had nine directors, including Lex Greensill and his brother Peter.

All of those directors, except Lex Greensill and Gabriel Caillaux, resigned from the board before Greensill filed for insolvency on March 8.

Liquidators will be able to investigate transactions made by Greensill, and if any are deemed to be uncommercial, they can be reversed.

Greensill’s Australian parent did not file tax returns for the years ending December 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, saying it needed an extension due to complexities associated with its group structure.

Greensill Australia mostly acted as a funnel for money going into the operating businesses in Britain and Germany. 

Those assets remain stuck in similar administration processes taking place for Greensill’s UK operations and Bremen-based Greensill Bank.

Greensill’s Australian employees have been paid $US4.5 million of bonuses earned in 2019, leaving them short of $2.2 million they are still owed.

Reports say they may have to make claims with the federal government’s Fair Entitlements Guarantee scheme to get the remainder.