Tim Leissner was by no means precisely the shy, retiring sort. Because the Southeast Asia chairman at Goldman Sachs, he reportedly was making greater than $10 million a 12 months by 2012, spending lavishly, and often called a hard-partier
However hooking up with Kimora Lee Simmons — the glamorous mannequin, Child Phat designer and ex-wife of Def Jam Data co-founder Russell Simmons — that very same 12 months pushed him to dwell a extra luxe life.
“He married Kimora and wanted to current a richer persona. He couldn’t be a banker. He needed to be a wealthy man together with his personal yacht,” Bradley Hope, co-author of “Billion Greenback Whale: The Man Who Fooled Walled Road, Hollywood and the World,” advised The Submit.
“He needed to be a participant as a substitute of the man who simply offers with gamers.”
Final week, Leissner, 51, was roasted at federal court docket in Brooklyn — within the scorching seat as authorities’s witness within the trial of his former underling. Roger Ng is charged with conspiring to launder cash and violate the federal Overseas Corrupt Practices Act as a part of a purported $4.5 billion heist in opposition to the sovereign fund of Malaysia, allegedly spearheaded by infamous social gathering boy — and buddy of Leonardo DiCaprio — Jho Low (now on the lam in China).
Goldman Sachs bankers are alleged to have helped themselves to tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars from Malaysia’s sovereign growth fund 1MDB, which had raised $8 billion to be invested on behalf of Malaysia’s citizenry.
The German-born Leissner has already labored out a plea deal — pleading responsible to fees of cash laundering and forfeiting $43.7 million. (Based on court docket paperwork, between 2012 and October 2014, greater than $200 million is alleged to have been transferred from 1MDB to accounts owned and managed by Leissner and a co-conspirator.) However Ng’s legal professional Marc Agnifilo continues to be dragging him by means of the mud.
“Tim Leissner makes use of individuals,” Agnifilo stated in court docket on Feb. 14. He was “married to 2 completely different girls on the identical time – twice.” The legal professional additionally accused Leissner of forging paperwork together with divorce papers and of getting sexual relations with Jasmine Bathroom Ai Swan, previously the overall counsel for 1MDB who obtained a $5 million switch from the fund.
“These issues ought to have been crimson flags,” the protection legal professional stated.
Calling Leissner a “mini model of Low,” Agnifilo claimed the previous banker sought out cash to to purchase non-public planes, yachts and houses in Beverly Hills.
Leissner’s legal professional had no remark for this story.
Hope additionally identified a few of Leissner’s previous shady conduct.
In 1993, “He purchased a Ph.D. on-line and began calling himself Dr. Leissner,” the creator stated. In “Billion Greenback Whale,” Hope writes, “Leissner started utilizing the title ‘Dr.’ at talking engagements and shortly after he secured a promotion to vp at J.P. Morgan.”
Leissner has at all times lived a lifetime of privilege.
The son of an prosperous Volkswagen govt, as a toddler he was obsessive about tennis and attended camps the place he obtained classes from the likes of Steffi Graf. After getting an MBA from the College of Hartford in Connecticut, he moved to London for an entry-level place at J.P. Morgan and his first marriage.
Across the mid-Nineties, his marriage hit the skids, enterprise boomed and Hong Kong beckoned.
He subsequent wed married Judy Chan, the daughter of a Chinese language coal magnate. The couple’s lavish wedding ceremony, held on the grounds of a wise Hong Kong resort, was infamous for its array of suckling pigs with flashing lights stuffed into the animals’ eye sockets.
(Though Ng’s legal professional Anigfilo claimed in court docket final week that Leissner was a “double bigamist” who was “married to 2 completely different girls on the identical time, twice,” it's not recognized which girls he's referring to.)
For American funding bankers in that period, the Far East was extra just like the Wild West. Leissner and his colleagues swaggered across the continent, their pockets bulging with money, taking the notion of work-hard/play-hard to an excessive.
Based on the Monetary Instances, “His partying capability was legendary, and even rivals admit he would nonetheless present up on time for conferences, nonetheless late the night time earlier than had ended.”
In the meantime, enterprise dealings that may be frowned upon within the West had been blithely missed in Southeast Asia.
“Tim felt snug within the edgy atmosphere,” stated Hope. “It was edgy as a result of it blended authorities with enterprise. We don’t have that in America — and if we did it might be stuffed with corruption. It’s a harmful factor having swimming pools of cash [accessible to top government officials]. Malaysia is legendary for corruption. You have got a rustic the place bribes are a part of the tradition. Skimming cash from offers is a part of the factor.”
Nonetheless, in accordance with Hope, Leissner was sufficient of a cash machine, ultimately incomes $10 million per 12 months for his work on the funding financial institution’s Hong Kong headquarters, that his allegedly shady eccentricities had been missed.
By the point Leissner met Jho Low, round 2008, launched by Ng, Leissner was thought to be, in accordance with Hope, “the bees’ knees” at Goldman.
Raised in Malaysia, of Chinese language descent and educated at Wharton, Low had already developed a status as an prosperous man with household cash and entry to sovereign wealth funds. He was recognized to be a deal maker for the rich and now he was seeking to corral billions for 1MDB, which was the sovereign wealth fund for the nation of Malaysia. Via Ng and Leissner, Goldman Sachs raised the cash through bond gross sales.
Based on prosecutors, Ng and Leissner allegedly helped Low embezzle funds from 1MDB in change for hundreds of thousands in kickbacks (Ng has pleaded not responsible to all fees). The payoffs shortly received out of hand, and so did the approach to life.
Leissner was a visitor at Low’s 2012 celebration in a transformed Vegas airplane hangar that housed diversions akin to a Ferris wheel and cigar lounge. Attendees included Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton together with Bradley Cooper and Zach Galifianakis, taking an evening off from filming “The Hangover” at Caesars Palace. Britney Spears jumped out of a cake that night time and serenaded Low. Robin Leach gushed about it being “the most costly social gathering that Las Vegas has ever seen.”
Low paid celebrities akin to Megan Fox and Leonardo DiCaprio to attend his events, flying them in on a non-public jet.
In 2012, Leissner was en path to a System 1 race when he met Kimora Lee Simmons in enterprise class on a Cathay Pacific flight between Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur. Nearly instantly, in accordance with “Billion Greenback Whale,” they started arguing over who ought to be capable to use the empty center seat for additional carry-ons. By the point they landed, Leissner had proposed marriage.
Although that took two years, they shortly grew to become an merchandise. Leissner all of the sudden discovered himself dwelling an elevated life at her $25 million mansion within the elite Beverly Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. The 2 had a son, Wolfe, in 2015. (Kimora additionally has two daughters, Ming, 22, and Aoki, 19, with Russell Simmons; son Kenzo, 12, with actor Djimon Hounsou; and adopted son Gary, 12.)
“The impression [colleagues] had was that he needed to make some huge cash,” Hope stated of Leissner when Kimora got here into his life. “He wasn’t content material to make what he made.”
Leissner at all times appeared to have methods of justifying his success with out seeming unsavory.
“No one knew he was doing the issues he was doing or the complete extent of it,” Hope stated, referring particularly to the Jho Low caper however explaining that it may have gone past that one. Seeing how a lot enterprise Leissner introduced in from Southeast Asia, part of the world that may be tough for American bankers to penetrate, Goldman colleagues “puzzled how he did what he did and the way he pulled it off. He stated he was charismatic and understood the tradition.”
Hope just isn't shocked that Leissner pulled it off: “Folks like Tim know how you can management themselves. They're good chameleons.”
However rubber hit the highway in 2015 when it grew to become clear that the 1MDB Fund had amassed overwhelming debt. Goldman Sachs launched an in-house investigation. Leissner, suspended from the agency, repaired to the luxe life in Los Angeles. As soon as arrested, in June 2018, he speedily entered a responsible plea and commenced negotiating an important deal of his life.
“Mainly, Leissner agreed to testify in opposition to all people,” Hope advised The Submit. “Ng received arrested and allowed himself to be extradited. He didn't need to do a plea deal. He … is preventing as a result of he thinks he's a small fish and why ought to he take the brunt of culpability?”
In the meantime, Leissner had additionally courted the wrath of his spouse’s ex. Russell and Kimora every personal half of an funding agency that held 4 million shares of the Celsius Vitality Drink firm; Russell claims that half of the shares had been fraudulently transferred to assist cowl Leissner’s bail and authorized charges; Kimora maintains that she and Leissner bought the shares independently. Russell has filed a lawsuit in opposition to the couple.
Kimora and Leissner at the moment are separated.
Hope, for one, believes that if the perpetrators had not been fairly so grasping, issues may need ended in another way.
“If only a billion dollars had been stolen, they may have gotten away with it,” the creator stated. “However the fund was a pyramid scheme. They wanted new cash to service the debt.”
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