London Court Freezes Up to $499 Million in Assets Tied to Iron Ore Trader Radiant World

A private credit fund connected to Jefferies has convinced London's High Court to freeze up to $499 million in assets tied to iron ore trader Radiant World, according to the Financial Times, as reported by The Straits Times. That figure is well above the roughly $300 million exposure Reuters previously reported for the fund's dealings with Radiant through Jefferies' Point Bonita vehicle.

The fund behind the freezing order is LAM Trade Finance Group II, in which Jefferies holds a minority stake, according to Reuters. Court records show the fund filed a pre-action application on August 27 that became public on the docket September 2, per Reuters and Briefs.co. The filing names Radiant World, founder Pinkesh Nahar, affiliated trading firm Sapphire Minmetals, and Sapphire's chairman Rakesh Sethi as defendants.

How the exposure got so big

Point Bonita's relationship with Radiant started small. The fund extended $35 million in financing to Radiant World back in 2021, according to Traders Union and Crypto Briefing. That number climbed into the hundreds of millions over the following years as Radiant grew into one of the largest names in global iron ore trading, moving more than 80 million tonnes annually and reporting $9.6 billion in revenue for the year ending September 2025, according to Crypto Briefing.

The trouble started when banks financing Radiant began questioning whether the invoices underpinning that credit were genuine. Bloomberg News reported last month that Jefferies was told some invoices backing financing to Sapphire Minmetals were not authentic, according to Reuters. That triggered a chain reaction. Vitol, Cargill, and Glencore all stopped new business with Radiant, and Intesa Sanpaolo has reevaluated its exposure to the trader, per Crypto Briefing.

Radiant and Sethi push back

Radiant World and Nahar have denied any wrongdoing, according to Traders Union. Radiant and Sapphire both maintain they are independent companies, not part of the same group. That distinction matters because Glencore CEO Gary Nagle said last month his company considers Radiant and Sapphire to be part of the same group, a characterization Sethi has explicitly denied, according to Reuters.

Hong Kong company records complicate the picture. They show Radiant previously held a majority stake in Sapphire until 2015, per Traders Union. One person who worked with Radiant on its financing told Traders Union that Nahar and Sethi are longtime business partners, though that alone doesn't establish the corporate ties Glencore has alleged.

No regulator or prosecutor in any jurisdiction has announced charges against Radiant, Nahar, Sethi, or Sapphire. Briefs.co explicitly notes that authorities have not alleged misconduct by Radiant World and that inquiries do not automatically lead to charges. The London freezing order itself is a civil asset-preservation measure, not a criminal finding, and the underlying application's specific legal basis was not publicly detailed in the court file, according to Reuters.

Not the only courtroom in play

London isn't the only jurisdiction where creditors are moving. Mizuho Bank has filed a case against Radiant World's Singapore operating entity and has taken legal steps to remove that unit's management, according to Bloomberg News reporting cited by Reuters. Separately, trade-finance firm Incomlend is suing Radiant World and Nahar in Singapore for $34 million, per Bloomberg News as cited by Reuters. Mizuho declined to comment.

Jefferies' bigger problem

The Radiant exposure lands on Jefferies at an already rough moment. Point Bonita was still absorbing losses from the collapse of First Brands Group, an Ohio auto-parts maker to which Jefferies disclosed $715 million of exposure last October, according to Traders Union. Jefferies now faces two lawsuits tied to that First Brands exposure on top of the Radiant fallout, per Traders Union, and the fund reportedly moved to stop rolling existing credit facilities with Radiant after facing investor redemption pressure in First Brands' wake.

Jefferies declined to comment to the Financial Times, and neither Jefferies nor Radiant World immediately responded to Reuters' requests for comment. Nahar could not immediately be reached, and Radiant World and Sethi did not immediately respond to Reuters either.

MarketBeat's roundup of Jefferies news this week filed the freezing order under "positive sentiment" for the bank, framing it as an asset-recovery move, while also noting Jefferies holds only a minority stake in the fund involved. That framing leaves out that Jefferies' own credit-fund business, not just a passive investment, is the one that extended the financing and is now suing to recover it. This distinction matters given Jefferies' direct managerial role in Point Bonita.

The unresolved question is how much of that $499 million actually gets recovered. Freezing orders lock down assets, but they don't create new money. If Radiant's finances turn out to be as strained as its estranged lenders now suspect, Jefferies-linked investors could be looking at a second major writedown within a year, following the First Brands loss.