In February 2020, SoftBank Group Corp.’s Masayoshi Son visited Indonesia, offering to invest billions of dollars toward the development of a new capital city. Lex Greensill, at the time a favorite of Son’s, was part of the entourage.
SoftBank had invested $1.5 billion (¥166 billion) in Greensill’s eponymous finance company, but in a meeting with Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Son introduced Greensill as the "money guy,” according to local TV footage.
One year later, the money guy has become a money pit. Greensill Capital collapsed in March in one of the most spectacular financial blowups of recent years, sending shock waves through a Swiss banking giant, two of Japan’s largest firms and a British tycoon’s industrial empire.
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