Lars Windhorst attracts finance heavyweights to revamped board
Martin Gilbert and Marc Lasry join advisory team of German financier’s company
Flamboyant German financier Lars Windhorst has attracted fund management heavyweights Martin Gilbert and Marc Lasry to sit on a new advisory board for his rebranded investment company.
Mr Windhorst has relaunched his investment company in a bid to turn the page on several difficult years, which saw him and his firm Sapinda engaged in legal battles involving at least €220m with several investors — including Ukraine-born billionaire Len Blavatnik.
Mr Windhorst has renamed his group Tennor Holding, while taking the role of chairman of its advisory board. This board also includes Mr Lasry, co-founder of US hedge fund Avenue Capital, and Mr Gilbert, vice-chairman of UK asset manager Standard Life Aberdeen, Tennor said in a statement on its website on Monday.
A one-time teenage prodigy and poster boy for entrepreneurship in his native Germany, Mr Windhorst presided over several company insolvencies, a personal bankruptcy and received a suspended jail sentence in 2009. He then reformed his business around holding company Sapinda, setting up an office on Savile Row in the heart of London’s Mayfair district.
Tennor’s new advisory board also includes Bruno Crastes, the chief executive of France’s H2O Asset Management. The Natixis-backed investment group’s funds have invested in illiquid bonds from several companies linked to Mr Windhorst, supporting him in a crucial 2017 bond sale that helped the entrepreneur settle outstanding lawsuits and repay existing debts.
Mr Windhorst declined to comment; Mr Lasry confirmed he was joining the board of Tennor but declined to comment further. A spokesperson for Standard Life Aberdeen did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tennor has a separate management board, headed up by chief executive Robin Bagchi.
The group holds stakes in businesses such as medical devices maker Avatera Medical and film distribution company Wild Bunch. It last year acquired luxury fashion house La Perla from Silvio Scaglia, after the Italian entrepreneur settled a lawsuit he had filed against Mr Windhorst over amounts owed under financing agreements.
Mr Windhorst has previously denied being a subject of a whistleblower complaint against Goldman Sachs last year, after a former senior manager of the US investment bank claimed he was fired in 2017 as part of an effort to avoid a compliance scandal. An exhibit in the lawsuit referred to a 2015 Financial Times profile of the German entrepreneur and detailed several deals he was involved in.