Chapter 1684

After following up the second IPO of CNOOC, everything went well, and spent the weekend at dumei point Manor on the west coast. Chen Qing set out to return to China in the new week.

Simon also flew to the east coast again.

This is October 9th, 2000.

Monday.

It is less than a month before the 54th US presidential election on November 7.

At 8 a.m. on the west coast, he boarded a private plane. Due to the time difference, Simon arrived in New York at more than 2 p.m. on the east coast time.

Leaving the airport, Simon didn't rest and rushed directly to cersei capital headquarters in Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan.

On the office floor of Apollo management company under cersei capital, Leon Blake, President of Apollo management company, is already waiting. In addition, there is the chief financial officer of AOL, named lockdelkins.

An appointment was made in advance. Simon received a financial audit report from here over the weekend.

The audit object is a 'famous' name in Simon's memory: Enron company.

In history, the Enron financial scandal not only led to the largest enterprise bankruptcy case in American history at that time, but also triggered a series of chain reactions. One of them was the collapse of the new technology wave at that time, which was severely beaten again, causing another round of sharp decline of the NASDAQ index.

After being disturbed beyond recognition by Simon, the big butterfly, history had forgotten this matter. Unexpectedly, the company headquartered in Texas took the initiative to connect with Westeros system.

First of all, I have to mention Enron, an energy company headquartered in Houston, Texas, established in the wave of corporate mergers in the 1980s. In its early stage, it was mainly engaged in natural gas business and had a huge natural gas pipeline network in the southern United States.

After its establishment in 1985, Enron began its long-term continuous expansion from uninterrupted to the present, and its business shifted from natural gas to power, water, paper and other fields.

After the rise of the new technology wave, Enron stepped on the pulse of the times and will go deep into the telecommunications field, mainly involved in broadband infrastructure business, so it intersected with AOL.

In order to speed up the expansion of its own network and reduce costs, AOL in some southern states and counties chose to rent some broadband lines of Enron, as well as some cooperation involving marketing, after-sales and so on.

This is why things happen.

With the continuous rise of the NASDAQ index, Enron, whose business also has the label of new technology, has a recent market value of more than $70billion. Just in the past two years, the company's share price has increased by nearly 300%, equivalent to the increase in the previous decade.

On the other hand, for the quarter from April to June 2000, Enron's single quarter net profit was $163million, and the annual net profit is expected to be only about $650million, which means that the company's P / E ratio has reached an exaggerated 100 times.

At the peak of the current Internet foam, as a new technology concept stock, the P / E ratio is more than 100 times, which is actually very normal.

The problem is that Enron is not satisfied, so it recently came up with an expansion plan for the telecommunications sector that plans to invest $3billion in the next two years. It plans to further expand its broadband line network, and even plans to connect the network cable to Mexico.

Enron itself can't take out the huge funds of $3 billion. Even though the company claims an annual revenue of $100 billion, the natural gas sales, as the focus of revenue, actually belong to the low profit field because of price control.

Therefore, it can only be financed externally.

Even if the NASDAQ index has soared, making too many people feel shaky, there are still a lot of potential investments flocking to new technologies.

Including Westeros system itself.

AOL cooperated with Enron and got the materials at the first time. After some contact, Apollo management, which is mainly responsible for investment and mergers and acquisitions under cersei capital, was introduced into the Bureau.

However, compared with AOL or other crazy investors who are bent on throwing money into the field of technology stocks, as a veteran of Wall Street, Leon black led the team from the 1980s, from junk bonds to capital hedging, from vulture investment to super mergers and acquisitions, countless ups and downs, saw too many ways to play, and soon found the problem of Enron.

A big problem.

The first is the telecommunications business related to this expansion. After all, if we want to expand, of course, we should let investors see their investment results in the past few years.

A conference room of Apollo management company.

Leon Blake personally explained some of these joints to Simon: "we have invested in many aspects in the Internet industry, so we are very clear about the return on investment in relevant fields in recent years. However, according to the data given by Enron, the return on investment is obviously much higher than our similar investments. It happens that there are some data from AOL. We compared them and immediately found the problem. Simon, look here."

With that said, Leon black raised a page of ppt on the big screen in front of the conference room, with some tabular data on it, Then he said: "AOL cooperated with Enron in Austin, Texas in a broadband network leasing agreement, which agreed to pay in installments for five years, but Enron deliberately wiped out the five-year contract term in the financial data. For people who do not know the truth, they will subconsciously think that the agreement between Enron and AOL is $35million a year, which is equivalent to indirectly increasing the financial report by five times. Moreover, this is only a small trick. After further study, We found that Enron's public financial statements, not only telecommunications, but also other main businesses such as energy and electricity, were full of false data, such as recording a large number of forward sales contracts that may not be cashed into revenue, such as attaching multiple debts to subsidiaries to whitewash the parent company's balance sheet, and so on. In the past five years alone, Enron's revenue has increased from $13billion to $110billion, an increase of more than eight times. Through the recent survey, I'm sure that at least half of the revenue data is absolutely false. "

Leon Blake finished, returned to the conference table and sat down, looking at his boss leaning on the office chair, tapping the table with one hand and holding his cheeks in contemplation with the other.

Simon waited for Blake to sit down before he said, "which accounting firm is Enron?"

"Andersen," Leon Blake said, quickly flipping through the file in front of him and pushing a folder over: "in the past two years, Andersen's Houston Branch has received $25million and $27million in audit fees from Enron, respectively, equivalent to 30% of the annual revenue of the branch of this firm, 70% higher than the normal rate."

hush money.

The idea flashed through Simon's mind for the first time.

Listed companies in the United States, according to the requirements of the SEC, have a docking third-party accounting firm, which is a means of supervision.

However, it is obviously useless now.

Ah.

Think of a series of companies owned by his family. Simon smiled silently at the corners of his mouth.

It's useless.

Therefore, there is no need to ask more about the board of directors, which is nothing more than a community of interests that does not play a supervisory role.

As for why Enron's management is so almost madly falsifying accounts, even if there is no memory, it is not difficult to understand what Simon has seen and heard over the years.

In the final analysis, it is interest.

The income of senior executives, especially those of listed companies, is usually directly linked to the company's revenue, stock price and other figures. The brighter these figures are, the higher their remuneration will be.

Thinking so, Simon simply flipped through the file pushed by Leon black.

In addition to the details of the cooperation with Andersen, one of the world's five largest accounting firms, there is also information about the members of Enron's board of directors, including the interests of some of the so-called independent directors with Enron related non-profit organizations.

Obviously, the matter of Enron has been thoroughly investigated here.

Glancing up at Leon black and lockdelkins, the chief financial officer of AOL, he noticed that both of them were looking forward to it. Simon asked, "who knows this?"

Leon Blake said, "we have no more than one hand on both sides. It's no problem to keep it secret."

Simon nodded slightly.

The matter at hand is definitely not just that Westeros system has avoided an investment trap.

In short, this is a bomb.

As long as the Westeros system throws this bomb out, once detonated, it can not only blow up Nasdaq, which is now at its peak, but also affect the upcoming U.S. presidential election voting, which can be said to affect the whole body.

As for our own side, what benefits can we get?

Great benefits!

Just like Simon's operation in 87, two words, short.

If the bomb of Enron is thrown out, it will not only blow up Nasdaq, but also the New York Stock Exchange. The three major stock indexes in the United States and even the global stock market will suffer heavy losses under the chain reaction.

Westeros can easily reap billions of dollars in windfall profits in a short time as long as it establishes enough short positions around relevant trends.

Of course, the premise is that you must be careful not to let people know that this is the work of Westeros system, otherwise, you may not know how many enemies this tree has, and maybe one day, someone will secretly return a few stumbling blocks.

After jumping and tapping his fingers on the smooth meeting table for more than a minute, Simon finally withdrew his thoughts, closed the previous folder, and said to Leon Blake, "you can contact Jim later to make unified arrangements, and you can start to build short positions in a targeted manner. However, don't remind me, you should understand that my only requirement is to keep it as secret as possible."

Jim, James Leibold, of course.

Such an opportunity, after all, is a potential short selling income of tens of billions of dollars. If Simon lets it go, it's really hard to explain to the following people.

Then follow the trend.

However, after just considering, at least before the election next month, Simon does not intend to release the news.

Obviously, releasing this news at the moment, while puncturing the new technology foam, is certainly not conducive to the election situation of the Democratic Party to some extent.

However, things are not absolute.

After all, Enron is a Texas company, and as the Republican presidential candidate, George W. Bush is still the governor of Texas.

The Enron scandal burst the new technology foam, and it will take some time for the stock market to hit voters. Even if the news is released tomorrow and has a real impact, the general election may be over. However, Al Gore can immediately find an excuse to attack George W. Bush's adverse financial supervision of Texas enterprises.

It had an immediate impact on the support rate of George W. Bush.

In short, the bomb exploded immediately. It's hard to say who will win.

Simply remove this variable.

In any case, after several months of campaign sprint, less than a month before the election vote, from being far away from Gore at first, to now, George W. Bush's spending rate has been equal to gore.

As for the reason.

Very complicated.

Perhaps Clinton's eight years in office, even if the results are very good, will eventually make the public feel a little tired. In addition, the scandals of the current president have affected his old partner of eight years.

Perhaps, there are the election strategies of both sides.

Under Simon's covert operation, new technology and the Internet did not become the focus of this election. After all, if you don't pay attention a little, the flames may burn on the Westeros system. Simon won't allow this to happen.

However, there are still many topics that can be discussed.

For example, medical insurance reform.

During his eight years in office, Clinton successfully implemented a new health care bill.

For those who don't know where to go, the health insurance bill must benefit more people. In fact, just as the medical reform once brought more unnecessary burden to many public and national finances, Clinton's medical reform, because it focused on the bottom subsidies, increased the burden on the middle class, which actually caused many people's dissatisfaction.

Another example is tax reduction.

This is a big killer.

When it comes to taxation, when it comes to the Democratic Party, the first impression of the public is often tax increases.

Republicans, of course, are tax cuts.

Since Clinton has been in office for eight years, there has been a rare surplus in the national budget. In the view of the Republican Party, the next step is, of course, to reduce taxes and reduce the public burden. George W. Bush also took this as a platform and attracted a lot of support.

In contrast, AlGore is unlikely to deviate too much from the overall policy direction of the Democratic Party, so he appears to be tied up.

In short, it is still similar to the slogan of Clinton.

The problem is always the economy.

To some extent, as Clinton's successor, Al Gore can't go the other way, even if he doesn't want to follow the rules, which gives George W. Bush the opportunity to be more flexible.

It is also nature that people want to change.

Just like people who have too many good days in both reality and story, they can't help tossing about.

The result of various reasons is the current situation of equal strength between the two sides.

However, this is only superficial.

Through all aspects of operation, some key swing states, George W. Bush's support rate has a hidden tendency to suppress Gore, especially in Florida, which Simon has been paying close attention to secretly. As long as history does not change much, there will not be much suspense about the ownership of Florida's vote this time.

After all, there is a memory that the Westeros system has invested enough in Florida. Therefore, the election result of this key swing state can be basically determined. There is no doubt that the winner is not George W. Bush. Moreover, this time, it will definitely not be a weak lead of only a few hundred votes that triggered a judicial war.

Now that the overall situation has been decided, seeking stability is the best strategy at present.

Enron's bomb can only be shelved for the time being.

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