KUALA LUMPUR— Tim Leissner, once the rising star at Goldman Sachs, had a reputation as a womaniser.
While this may be an entirely personal trait, there were at least two instances when these liaisons seemed to have a business link.
Financial Times (FT) reported that in one instance “Mr Leissner was accused of having an affair with an executive at a Malaysian company the bank was advising. When confronted about the potential conflict of interest he denied the liaison, according to people familiar with the matter.”
There was also an alleged brief affair with the daughter of the late Tan Sri Jamaluddin Jarjis who died in a helicopter crash in 2015.
Leissner allegedly arranged for her to intern at Goldman in 2010 “despite unease among some of his colleagues.”
She apparently told friends she believes Leissner “instigated the relationship to curry favour with Malaysia’s political elite”.
One of these friends was quoted as saying, “She feels rotten that the only reason he showed interest was to get close to her father.”
Jamaluddin was close to former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who is also facing nearly 40 charges in Malaysia over his role in 1MDB, abuse of power and corruption, among others.
FT: Once its star banker, Tim Leissner now the biggest threat to Goldman Sach’s reputation
KUALA LUMPUR — Before the 1MDB scandal blew up his life, Tim Leissner was known as the good-looking star banker at Goldman Sachs married to former American model and now-TV celebrity Kimora Lee Simmons.
Today, Leissner is shunned by his former colleagues as was evident by his absence at a recent party to celebrate his former firm’s 150th anniversary.
The former rising star at Goldman Sachs earned his company “tens of miilions of dollars at this peak,” a Financial Times (FT) report said.
The same report added that Leissner may now be “the biggest ever threat” to Goldman’s reputation.
“Once praised by executives as an example to emulate, Mr Leissner has become a pariah inside the bank, after pleading guilty to bribery, conspiracy and money laundering charges in connection with a vast fraud at Malaysia’s state development fund,” FT reported.
While the Goldman Sachs has attempted to distance itself from the controversy, Leissner’s own admission that concealing information from the bank’s compliance officers was “very much in line” with Goldman Sachs’ business culture was a serious body blow.
The report stated that recent revelations that the bank’s now former chief executive Lloyd Blankfein met with fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho or Jho Low — who is at the heart of the scandal — in 2009 and 2012, raised further suspicion.
While the storied investment bank is no newbie to controversies, it may find the latest financial scandal a little harder to shake off.
Putrajaya had last week put an amount — US$7.5 billion (RM31.25 billion) — to the compensation it is seeking from Goldman Sachs for its blunder over 1MDB.
Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng told FT that the government is looking for reparation beyond the sum of its losses in the “excessive” US$600 million fees paid to Goldman Sachs and three bonds arranged by the bank.
“The bond offerings were always controversial, due to the high amount Goldman earned from the fundraising and the fact that it acted as a sole bookrunner on such a large deal.
“The long-term damage to Goldman’s franchise is hard to quantify. Executives say that so far it has been limited to Singapore and Malaysia. But the head of a rival investment bank argues that Goldman ‘won’t be as aggressive and as cute as it used to be … it will lose its edge’,” FT reported.
MALAY MAIL
Good looking banker! Really?
ReplyDelete