Cameron red-faced as firm goes under

GREENSILL’S collapse will come as an embarrassment to former leading officials who allowed its founder access to the heart of the establishment.

Right up until its implosion yesterday, Greensill still counted former prime minister David Cameron as an adviser, and former Government chief commercial officer Bill Crothers as its vice-chairman.

Cameron’s fortunes following his premiership, which ended in 2016, are a stark contrast with those of George Osborne, his former chancellor, who now holds a lucrative role at Londonbased boutique investment bank Robey Warshaw.

Lex Greensill, who launched his business in 2011, found his key to the upper echelons of Government in Jeremy Heywood, who was head of the Civil Service from 2014 to 2018.

The two met at investment bank Morgan Stanley in the 2000s, where Greensill – then a young banker who had only recently emigrated from Australia in 2001 – was taken under Heywood’s wing.

When Greensill later founded his eponymous business, Heywood – who had by then returned to the Civil Service – helped his former protege to build an enviable list of contacts.

Greensill offered to advise the Cameron government on supplychain finance, and in 2018 he handed the former prime minister a job.

For several years, Greensill’s was a familiar face in the Cabinet Office where he regularly attended meetings with the likes of Heywood, senior civil servant John Manzoni – who was Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary from 2015 to 2020 – and then-Cabinet Office minister Matt Hancock.