Bloomberg (Bloomberg) -- Credit Suisse Group AG executives ignored warnings from colleagues about troubled steel tycoon Sanjeev Gupta as they channeled $1.2 billion of client funds to his businesses, according to people familiar with the matter.Bankers in Credit Suisse’s commodity trade-finance unit blacklisted Gupta’s Liberty Commodities Ltd. in 2016 because they suspected some of its deals weren’t legitimate, the people said. When they learned about two years later that the bank was lending to his companies through a suite of investment funds, which eventually grew to $10 billion, they flagged their worries to leaders in compliance and the division that housed the loans, one of the people said.The disclosure that Credit Suisse may have put clients at risk despite internal concerns over Gupta’s businesses adds a new twist to the debacle stemming from the March implosion of Greensill Capital, the finance firm at the center of the three-way relationship.Investigations, LawsuitsThe U.K. Serious Fraud Office is now investigating Gupta’s group of companies for suspected fraud, including in its financing deals with Greensill, according to a May 14 statement. Credit Suisse has sued to force Gupta’s Liberty Commodities into insolvency and has since shut the funds that made the loans and launched an internal investigation. Investors are staring at losses as the bank confronts embarrassing lawsuits.“We are currently focusing our efforts on recovering our investors’ money,” Will Bowen, a spokesman for Credit Suisse in London, said in an emailed statement, adding that the bank’s internal probe will focus on “all of the issues” linked to the funds. “We are committed to learning the lessons and will share the relevant lessons learnt at the appropriate time.”Andrew Mitchell, a spokesman for the Gupta Family Group Alliance, or GFG Alliance, a collective of businesses linked to Gupta including Liberty Commodities, denied any wrongdoing.The Greensill saga represents just one of the two disasters that rocked Credit Suisse in the first half of 2021. Since Greensill began unraveling, the bank has announced a $5.5 billion hit from the blowup at Archegos Capital Management.ApologiesFormer Chairman Urs Rohner apologized to shareholders and his successor, Antonio Horta-Osorio, who arrived at the end of April, has promised a sweeping strategy review.Chief Executive Officer Thomas Gottstein, who was head of the division that oversaw trade finance, wasn’t aware of the internal concerns about Gupta that had prompted the bank to cut him off, according to a person familiar with the matter.Employees at the trade-finance unit, which lends money for the buying and selling of commodities, cut ties with Gupta in 2016 after becoming skeptical toward his Liberty Commodities, the people said. They distrusted the documents the company provided, triggering doubts about its transactions, they said. In one example reported by Bloomberg, the company had presented another bank with what seemed to be duplicate shipping receipts. A spokesman for Gupta has denied any wrongdoing.Banking TiesLiberty Commodities pledged assets to Credit Suisse as security for borrowings in 2013 but by early 2016, all such commitments had been extinguished, indicating that the financing relationship had ceased, U.K. Companies House filings show. And while Gupta’s company listed the Swiss bank as one of its lenders in its 2014 annual report, it didn’t in the following year’s report, which is dated May 2016, according to the filings.Their counterparts at other banks, including Macquarie Group Ltd. and Sberbank PJSC, halted trading with Liberty Commodities around the same time because of similar concerns; Goldman Sachs Group Inc. also stopped in 2016, Bloomberg has reported.Nevertheless, executives at Credit Suisse’s asset-management division -- which creates investment products for clients and charges a fee for overseeing them -- began arranging a suite of funds focused on supply-chain finance in 2017. The entities bought securitized loans packaged by Greensill, a firm created by Australian businessman Lex Greensill. Much of the debts were linked to Gupta’s businesses.WarningsOfficials at the commodity trade-finance unit were concerned when they found out about the funds’ links to Gupta and took their fears to Thomas Grotzer, general counsel for the bank’s Swiss division. They also warned Luc Mathys and Lukas Haas, the bankers who helped oversee the trades at the asset-management unit.Grotzer was promoted last month to interim global head of compliance at Credit Suisse. He didn’t respond to requests for comment. Mathys, head of fixed-income at the asset-management division, and Haas, a portfolio manager, were put on temporary leave in March. Neither responded to requests for comment.The bank pushed ahead with the funds and marketed them to investors as being made up of short-term debt secured on invoices, assets considered so safe that Credit Suisse gave the largest vehicle its lowest rating for risk. Yet part of the loans were linked to mere possible future revenues.Other parts of the bank continued working with Gupta as well. Credit Suisse’s investment bankers were due to lead an initial public offering for Liberty’s U.S. steel arm, which was ultimately pulled, according to a statement from the company. Gupta also announced that the Swiss bank would finance his planned acquisition of Thyssenkrupp AG’s steel unit, which fell apart earlier this year.Credit Suisse has so far recouped about $5.9 billion of the $10 billion in these supply-chain funds, but it remains unclear how much will be returned ultimately to investors. Loans to Gupta’s businesses are among a batch of debts that are the “principal sources of valuation uncertainty,” the bank said earlier this month.Liberty Commodities’s external legal advisors investigated “alleged rumors concerning the paperwork” it used in 2019, according to Mitchell, the spokesman for GFG Alliance. They found no evidence to substantiate the rumors, nor was the company “ever subject to further complaints or proceedings,” he said.“LCL has ongoing banking relationships with separate financial institutions,” Mitchell said, referring to Liberty Commodities. “The trade-finance market has been hugely challenging for all but the very largest commodities traders in recent years. Nevertheless, no financial institution has been left out of pocket as a result of lending money to LCL. On the contrary, they have received substantial commercial returns.”More stories like this are available on bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.<doc-sep>"It's not a question of like or dislike, it's a question that they will overturn everything that we've done and they will do it quickly and violently. And violently. There is violence. When you look at Antifa - these are violent people," he said.<doc-sep>WASHINGTON — President Trump warned evangelical leaders Monday night that Democrats “will overturn everything that we’ve done and they’ll do it quickly and violently” if Republicans lose control of Congress in the midterm elections. Speaking to the group in the State Dining Room of the White House, Mr. Trump painted a stark picture of what losing the majority would mean for the administration’s conservative agenda, according to an audiotape of his remarks provided to The New York Times by someone who attended the event. “They will end everything immediately,” Mr. Trump said. “When you look at antifa,” he added, a term that describes militant leftist groups, “and you look at some of these groups, these are violent people.” A White House spokesman, Hogan Gidley, declined to elaborate on what the president meant. The blunt warning — delivered to about 100 of the president’s most ardent supporters in the evangelical community — was the latest example of Mr. Trump’s attempts to use the specter of violence at the hands of his political opponents and to fan the flames of cultural divisions in the country.<doc-sep>
US midterms: Trump comments are 'irresponsible' says expert The president’s extraordinary prediction was captured on an audio recording made at a state dinner honouring evangelical Christian ministers at the White House. Mr Trump is heard urging the religious leaders to use the power of their pulpits to ensure “all of your people vote” in November, according to the New York Times which has obtained a copy of the recording. He tells them: “You have tremendous power. You were saying, in this room, you have people who preach to almost 200 million people. Depending on which Sunday we're talking about. “This November 6 election is very much a referendum on not only me, it's a referendum on your religion, it's a referendum on free speech and the First Amendment. It's a referendum on so much. There’s violence. When you look at antifa, these are violent people Donald Trump “You’re one election away from losing everything you’ve got.” And in an apparent reference to Congressional Democrats he warned “they will end everything immediately” if Republicans fail to maintain their grip on Congress. He said: “They will overturn everything that we’ve done and they’ll do it quickly and violently. And violently. There’s violence. “When you look at antifa, and you look at some of these groups, these are violent people.” Donald Trump has warned of 'violence' after the US midterms Mr Trump described anti-fascist protestors as 'violent people' It remains unclear if Mr Trump was referring to congressional Democrats as “violent people” or what connection the president was alleging between Congressional Democrats and young anti-fascist protesters known as antifa. But his comments appear to echo the rhetoric of controversial political adverts from the National Rifle Association which used footage from street protests to paint all Americans who oppose Mr Trump, as violent thugs who “bully and terrorise the law-abiding”. US writer Jeff Sharlet described the advert as “barely a whisper shy of a call for full civil war”. The Democrats will try to pick up 23 seats in the US House of Representatives and two seats in the Senate to gain majorities and slam the brakes on Mr Trump's legislative agenda.