In early 2019, industrialist Sanjeev Gupta was trying to secure his biggest prize yet: a deal to buy a string of steel plants across Europe from ArcelorMittal. There was just one problem: he was struggling to find the cash.

The European Commission insisted he invest more of his own money - and take on less debt - before it would approve the purchase. For Gupta, as on so many previous occasions, the answer came as a creative solution from financier Lex Greensill.

Greensill’s company extended hundreds of millions of dollars of credit to Gupta’s businesses based on the inventories at his Australian assets. Problem solved, a few months later the ArcelorMittal deal was done.

The tale of Gupta’s acquisition of the ArcelorMittal assets illustrates how the British-Indian entrepreneur built his empire by shuffling cash from one part of his business to another. The reporting, based on corporate filings spanning Australia, Singapore and the UK, and interviews with two people with direct knowledge of the deal, suggests his ascent relied on clinching one deal after the next, raising new financing at every stage, and thus piling debt on top of debt - much of it from Greensill.