RE: More about Gupta8 Feb 2022 09:58
Wyelands’ accounts disclose that the bank is under investigation from the PRA and the Financial Conduct Authority, noting that regulators could levy a fine in excess of the £3mn the bank said it had available to pay it. Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, revealed last year that regulators had also referred the bank to the National Crime Agency and Serious Fraud Office, after probing its “connected lending” related to Gupta.
Wyelands’ previous auditor PwC, which resigned in late 2019 citing an undisclosed conflict of interest, is under investigation from the Financial Reporting Council.
In an audit letter signed this month, Wyelands’ present auditor Mazars noted that the bank had faced “sustained challenges” in recovering loans from borrowers, “not least those that are fellow GFG Alliance firms”.
The annual report revealed that Wyelands’ chair, John Crompton, Frewer, and the chair of its risk committee, David Smith, resigned from the board this month. Jay Hambro, the scion of a London banking dynasty who was formerly Gupta’s top lieutenant, resigned from the board in July last year after falling out with the metals magnate.
Murali Subramanian, the former head of trade finance lender FIMBank, replaced Hambro as Gupta’s shareholder representative on the board in September. Subramanian also sits on the board of Banca Romana de Credite si Investitii, a Romanian bank that Sanjeev Gupta acquired in early 2020.
Gupta looked at acquiring Italy’s Aigis Banca in 2020, but did not complete the transaction. The small Italian lender later collapsed.
Gupta also held talks with offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca about setting up a bank in Panama two years before regulators allowed him to buy one in the UK.