Goldman-Najib meeting to secure jobs for children, report says
In return for the lucrative business, jobs would be secured for Najib’s three children at the US multinational investment bank.
Leissner told this to the jury in...
Former Goldman Sachs South Asia chair Tim Leissner testified yesterday that a meeting between ex-Goldman chief Lloyd Blankfein and former prime minister Najib Razak in 2009 indeed came with an agenda, according to a news report.
In return for the lucrative business, jobs would be secured for Najib’s three children at the US multinational investment bank.
Leissner (above, left) told this to the jury in a federal court in Brooklyn, New York on the second day of trial.
The 52-year-old is a star witness in the criminal trial of former Goldman executive Roger Ng (above, right).
Ng was charged with pocketing US$35 million (RM146 million) in "secret kickbacks" in the alleged multibillion-dollar looting of state investment fund 1MDB.
Ng, former Goldman head of investment banking in Malaysia, is the only former Goldman banker charged in court in the 1MDB scandal.
In his testimony, Leissner described how his subordinate Ng and a tight circle of Goldman partners embezzled 1MDB funds.
Leissner was quoted by Bloomberg as saying that Ng told him Najib was coming to New York to visit his children in the US for the Thanksgiving holidays.
He also noted that Malaysian financier Jho Low thought it would be good if Blankfein and Najib could meet up as a way to promote the bond deals for 1MDB.
Leissner added that Ng, apart from meeting Low, said he also met Najib’s children.
"Just met PM’s (Najib's) three children at his apartment, am with Jho at his apartment. Meeting him again tomorrow and will work at getting his three children to join Goldman Sachs," Leissner read to the jury from an email.
"The prime minister of Malaysia was potentially great business for us, so I felt having the children of the prime minister work for us would potentially be seen (as a positive), not just for the prime minister, (but) all others in Asia would take notice."
Leissner said he helped get Najib’s daughter a job at US investment company TPG.
Code names, including "friend" and PMO (Prime Minister's Office), were created in order to obscure the role of Low in their fund-raising efforts for 1MDB, said Leissner.
He said Ng, together with other Goldman officials, used the code names to conceal the extent of Low’s involvement in the fund-raising projects from other partners at the bank.
"Had we raised his name in his true capacity, we would not have been approved by Goldman oversight officials. It was a red flag that would have stopped the transaction," he said.
Leissner, in 2018 pleaded guilty to similar charges and agreed to cooperate with the government's investigation.
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