Wyelands Bank has announced that it has “no viable future” and that virtually all of its loans are in default, nearly a year after regulators forced Sanjeev Gupta’s stricken lender to return money to British savers.
In its latest annual accounts published on Monday, Wyelands said that efforts to find a buyer for the bank had been unsuccessful, meaning it had made the “majority of staff” redundant ahead of winding down the business. The bank also reported a £116mn loss in the year ending April 2021, with more than 90 per cent of its £173mn loan book impaired because a “high proportion” of its borrowers “remained in default”.
Gupta, a steel magnate whose GFG Alliance conglomerate is now under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office, established Wyelands Bank in 2016 with the stated aim of supporting British industry. It gathered £700mn in deposits from British savers at its peak but the Prudential Regulation Authority ordered the bank to repay customer deposits in March 2021 amid rising concerns over its financial position.
This came a year after a Financial Times investigation revealed that Wyelands Bank had channelled depositors’ money into Gupta’s wider business empire, using a network of companies controlled by the metals magnate’s associates. Gupta’s employees often referred to these entities as the “Friends of Sanjeev”.
Stephen Rose, chief executive of Wyelands, said the bank’s wind down “is now largely complete. As a result, we need fewer employees and fewer board members.
“In addition, the bank is simplifying its structures to preserve its resources, and that is why a number of our senior colleagues have resigned as directors. Rachelle Frewer has left the board but remains as the bank’s chief financial officer.”
GFG Alliance said: “The shareholder has supported the bank to ensure a solvent wind down.”
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.
