God-level Trader of Rebirth

Chapter 469 True and False White Warrior

But Fuld doesn’t think so. He is still running around, making a final effort to continue the century-old Lehman.

July [-], [-], morning.

Located in the Lehman Building headquarters, one of the five major investment banks on Wall Street, in one of the offices, a phone call suddenly rang, disturbing a man and a woman who were talking to each other.

The man is Sanders, the company's executive manager, and the woman is his secretary.

After answering the phone, Sanders turned pale instantly. He only heard the other end of the phone say: "Sanders, the Treasury Department does not support our split plan, but I have just convinced Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke to come forward to solve the problem of Raytheon." This is our last hope.”

After hanging up the phone, Sanders hurriedly asked his female secretary to reserve a banquet hall for tonight at the Four Seasons Hotel in Lower Manhattan, New York.

It was one of the most luxurious hotels in New York.

At eight o'clock in the evening, Sanders and a man in the same suit and tie served as welcome guests at the brightly lit hotel entrance, greeting the guests with smiles, but their smiles were a little unnatural. , even barely.

That was the man who called Sanders that morning, and was also Sanders' big boss, Richard Fuld.

What the two of them greeted were the big names who could influence Wall Street: Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, UBS. The leaders of major investment banks, plus Treasury Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernan. gram.

After the reception started, the hall gradually became filled with the noise of bargaining and slaughtering pigs and cattle, just like the scene when the New York Stock Exchange opened.

"As long as we provide funds, anything is easy to negotiate."

"Afraid of default? If there is any problem with the down payment of 50 billion, Lehman will repay it."

"Do you think it's expensive? Well, let's give you 20% off."

Sanders looked at the former arrogant and arrogant boss, who was called the "Wall Street Bulldog" within the company and his peers, and now he was begging for mercy, and he couldn't help but feel extremely ashamed.

"Either the government endorses us, or the Fed injects capital," Fuld, the big boss, said earnestly to Treasury Secretary Paulson.

"Sorry, I said we can't bail out bankers with taxpayer money!"

Treasury Secretary Paulson shook his head and righteously rejected all his requests.

This was undoubtedly a slap in the face to Fuld, the big boss, but then Paulson pointed at the giants of Wall Street's major investment banks and added: "But they can!"

Everyone present smiled tacitly, but soon became silent again, as if waiting for something.

It was already past one in the morning, and the conference hall was filled with smoke.

At the same time, the Lehman Building was also brightly lit.

A small team has already started working. It is an asset accounting team designated by the Federal Reserve and Treasury Secretary Paulson. It is calculating the losses in Lehman's accounts.

During this period, accountants and lawyers kept coming over and questioning Fuld about his asset status, which made him sit on pins and needles. After asking the last question, he was asked to withdraw.

"The assets of more than 300 billion US dollars are actually only worth 45% of the book amount, or even lower!" An accountant reported to everyone while holding up several data reports that had just been faxed by the accounting team.

As a result, the conference hall began to become agitated again.

But immediately afterwards, people kept leaving the conference hall.

This scene made Fuld desperate.

Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke came over, patted him lightly on the shoulder, sighed and said: "Richard, don't blame me, the previous invisible rescue agreement of the Federal Reserve for financial institutions has stimulated moral hazard. Therefore. We unanimously decided to choose a reckless institution with enough influence to shock the market, voluntarily abandon all potential commitments to it, and let it collapse completely to warn all market participants not to have any illusions."

"This is not your fault alone, and we don't want this to happen. Lehman was just chosen at the wrong time."

Bernanke's words are tantamount to issuing a death notice to Lehman Brothers who are only breathing one breath.

At the same time, he was also telling Fuld that Lehman's death was inevitable because they were already the "chicken" used to kill chickens to scare monkeys in the context of the "subprime mortgage crisis".

Although this is a bit cruel, so what?
The capital market will not pity losers.

If you want to blame it, just blame it on your bad luck and hit the muzzle of the gun!
What's more, the public was already full of anger at the government's previous actions to bail out Bear Stearns and provide support to Fannie and Freddie, which used taxpayers' money to bail out bankers.

Judging from the current situation, Lehman Brothers will definitely not be the last financial institution in need of rescue. If they take action again, it is likely to "drain" the United States' finances.

And once the too-big-to-fail mentality of "anyway, with the government's backing, the benefits belong to me and the risks belong to everyone" is formed, the consequences will be disastrous.

After the meeting, Sanders, the executive manager of Lehman Corporation, walked down the road in despair, smelling of various cigars and feeling confused about the future, not knowing where to go.

Suddenly, the big boss called again: "Sanders, we are saved! Bank of America is willing to acquire us in the form of part of the loan plus equity!"

Sanders saw hope and ran back as hard as he could, as if the more he ran, the more hope he got, but what?
Fuld represented Lehman and after seven hours of negotiations with Bank of America, the legal teams of both parties finally drafted the acquisition agreement. Seeing that the merger was about to be concluded, the other party expressed regret after answering a phone call outside the door. To terminate this merger negotiation.

Fuld almost roared on the spot and asked several why?
However, the other party just shrugged and said that because the cooperation pressure was too great, they could only choose Merrill Lynch, which had a slightly better asset status.
After Sanders returned to the company, he learned the bad news immediately.

He rushed into the CEO's office and saw the big boss slumped on the sofa, with messy clothes and a silly look on his face. He poured him a cup of coffee and said, "BOSS, those bastards are just playing tricks on us. They don't really want to do anything." Save Rayman!”

"They want us to go bankrupt immediately and then divide up all our remaining assets!"

"Especially Paulson's bichi, his condescending attitude really makes me feel sick!"

Sanders was cursing and venting out all the grievances he had suffered during this period. He did not have the demeanor of an investment bank general manager. Perhaps at this time, he no longer cared about who he might offend.

God, Lehman is bankrupt and he's about to lose his job, so what's there to be afraid of? Fuld slumped on the sofa and did not join Sanders in criticizing Wall Street. He just slowly closed his eyes, as if he was completely despairing.

Once upon a time, the extremely arrogant and conceited CEO had to bow his head and admit that he had made a major strategic mistake. He single-handedly pushed the century-old Lehman into an irreversible abyss.

"BOSS, do you know? Just now, a fund company in Texas bought hundreds of millions of our bullish options in one fell swoop. I have to say, their fund manager is really talented. Is there any news from them? With such a lag, don’t you know we will go bankrupt soon?”

Sanders was a little tired from scolding, so he picked up the cup of coffee he originally brewed for Fuld, took a few sips, smacked his lips and said casually.

"What did you say? Say it again!"

Fuld suddenly opened his eyes, jumped up from the sofa, grabbed Sanders by the collar and asked.

"I said, there is a fund company that just bought our call options worth hundreds of millions of dollars. BOSS, what's wrong with you?" Sanders was startled by his sudden move.

"Have you checked what the fund company is called? What is their background?" Fuld asked hurriedly.

Based on his intuition from many years of working in the financial industry, such unconventional operations are unlikely to occur in the capital market. Even if the other fund manager is really not very smart, is there not a single sober person in the entire fund company?

You know, such an investment method that is almost a gamble will never pass the review of the company's risk control department.

Since Lehman failed to sell assets again and again, not only the major financial institutions on Wall Street took the lead in shorting their stocks, but also investors completely lost confidence in them, and a large number of selling followed.

Lehman's stock price has been suppressed to the point where it is only worth $1 per share, which can be said to be miserable.

If they apply for bankruptcy protection in the New York Federal Court at this time, I am afraid that the company's stock price will collapse instantly and become an out-and-out penny stock. By then, all shareholders will lose their money.

Is there anyone who doesn't know this?
"BOSS, I checked at the time, is a small fund company that has only been established for about eight years. They have less than 20 employees, and their past performance is very ordinary. They only slightly outperformed the S&P 500 Index. There should be no special background. .”

Seeing his nervous look, Sanders immediately revealed all the information he knew.

"It's no wonder. If they are just a small fund company, they really don't pay that much attention. In many cases, the risk control departments of small companies are in name only. The final strategy customization and operation are still the responsibility of the fund manager." Ful De suddenly realized and instantly found a very reasonable explanation.

However, his intuition told him that the information sources in the capital market were very complex and there could be no "unusual movements" for no reason.

Behind any abnormal operation, there may be some unknown information hidden.

Therefore, to be on the safe side, he immediately asked Sanders to conduct a thorough inspection of Lehman's asset management department to see if he could find any clues.

That was Lehman's most valuable cash flow unit.

It mainly includes their proprietary trading and directional asset management, collective asset management, market value management and other businesses of buying and selling stocks.

Sanders spent most of the day checking all the trading accounts in the entire asset management department, including peripheral hidden accounts.

This check didn't matter, the final result made them ecstatic!

Several of these accounts hold 1.2% of the stock shares of an Asian listed company. The yield curve has continued to rise in the past seven years, and the market value of their holdings has now increased approximately twenty times! A staggering US$25 billion!
This means that if all these stocks are cashed out, the cash will give the company at least half a year of buffer time!

There is an old saying, it is called the best time to come.

This sentence could not be more appropriate to apply to Lehman Corporation now.

[-], end of July.

Lehman, which is just one step away from bankruptcy, suddenly announced that it will sell approximately US$25 billion of "infinity" equity in the company's self-operated business through agreement transfer or bidding to relieve the company's current debt pressure.

This good news immediately stimulated the stock market, and Lehman's stock price rose accordingly.

Some investors also believe that Lehman, as an investment bank with a century-old history, cannot collapse so easily. Their stock price is already at the bottom.

Fuld and other company executives must have some "backup tricks" that they have not yet come up with.

Remarks like this gradually spread in the market, rekindling the hope of many investors that Lehman would survive.

The number of short orders in the stock market began to decrease sharply.

What appeared instead was a large number of long orders.

In just five trading days, Lehman's share price quickly rebounded from around one dollar to $[-].

Compared with the lowest point, it has skyrocketed several times!
What makes Lehman executives even more delighted is that this equity transaction went smoother than imagined!
In order to maximize profits, they would of course prefer private transfer transactions rather than directly selling stocks on the secondary market and causing stock price fluctuations.

As soon as Fuld released the news in the market, Chase Manhattan Bank sent the bank president and expressed his willingness to acquire the entire 10% stake in Infinity held by Lehman at a premium of 1.2%.

However, just as Fuld was about to sign the transfer agreement.

An institution from China called "Industrial and Commercial Bank of China" suddenly came to their door and offered to acquire the equity they held for US$30 billion.

Fuld felt flattered by his generous attitude and never bargaining.

But what happened immediately next made him almost shocked.

In just a few days, dozens of internationally renowned institutions contacted them and expressed their intention to acquire the company.

It even included the Japanese Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Nomura Securities, which had rejected him before, as well as the sovereign funds of some European countries, etc. The prices they offered were higher than the last.

This had to make Fuld and other Lehman executives wonder whether these institutions had colluded in private to deceive them!
(End of this chapter)