EDITORS' PICK | Mar 30, 2021,10:40am EST | 23,947 views

Gov. Jim Justice No Longer A Billionaire, After $850 Million Debt To Insolvent Greensill Capital Revealed

Christopher Helman Forbes Staff
Energy

James C. Justice II, the governor of West Virginia, made a fortune in 2009 when he sold Bluestone Resources, a collection of his best West Virginia coal mines, to Russian company Mechel OAO for $500 million plus several hundred million dollars in Mechel stock. That deal was enough to push Justice into the ranks of The Forbes 400 in 2011, with an estimated net worth of $1.1 billion, later peaking at $1.7 billion.

But the coal industry has deteriorated, and with it, the Justice family fortunes. In 2015, after coal prices plunged, the Russians insisted that the Justice family buy Bluestone back. So Justice paid $5 million for his old company, but also assumed some $300 million in environmental and legal obligations. Justice—in new court documents—says that the Russians left behind a shambles. “The business had been mismanaged under Mechel ownership, burdening it with substantial reclamation, union and trade obligations.”

Despite the challenges, Jim Justice, 69, and his son James C. Justice III, or “Jay,” say in their lawsuit that they have maintained the objective of “returning Bluestone to profitability.” Never mind that Justice long ago earned the reputation of being a businessman who never pays his bills—they just needed some more capital. Justice found a willing party in Greensill Capital—an upstart supply chain lender, which in April 2019 extended the Justices the first of some $850 million in outstanding loans.

Greensill had good reason to want to build a relationship with Justice, because Bluestone’s metallurgical coal had a natural buyer in the form of Greensill’s biggest client—GFG Alliance. Run by U.K. entrepreneur Sanjeev Gupta, GFG manages an empire of mostly secondhand steelworks and smelters across the U.K. and around the world. Notable assets include the last major steelworks in Scotland; Britain's last aluminum smelter; the largest electric arc furnace in the U.K. for melting scrap metal. Gupta built his steel empire with $5 billion borrowed via Greensill.

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