Chapter 416 Conquering Central

   "Gentlemen, you are doing a very good job! People who know about this program, including the Secretary of State himself, are full of praise for you. Believe me, this is all true."

It was still in the meeting room on Capitol Hill a few months ago, and the handsome Jefferson presided over the meeting, and the same group of people sat under the stage: including George Soros, Julian Robertson A group of heavyweight hedge fund bosses in China.

   I haven't seen you for three days, and I am impressed. Today, Jefferson has become a core figure in Gore's staff team. In addition to being responsible for the daily affairs of the vice president, he was also tasked with building a team for Gore's future campaign. Therefore, when meeting these wealthy financial tycoons, Jefferson, who has always been ruthless, rarely squeezed a few smiles from his face, and praised each other a few words.

   It's just that his overtures were misplaced, and almost everyone present didn't buy him. If it hadn't been caught by Jefferson and the people behind him with a sore foot, these bigwigs in the financial world wouldn't have flown all the way from New York to Washington.

   "Son, I don't care about the **** Secretary of State. Tell me, the plan has been implemented so far, can it be declared over?"

   Carl Icahn was the first to yell in dissatisfaction. For his buyout fund, the economic crisis in Asia has little to do with them. Of course, this relationship is only for funds that specialize in speculating on currencies, futures and other underlying objects. In fact, since the last meeting, Carl Icahn has upped the ante on American companies that are aggressively expanding in Asia. Over the past six months, due to the Asian financial crisis, local companies in this region have generally suffered heavy losses. Many companies either went bankrupt or were forced to merge, while powerful American companies took the opportunity to enter these regions and actively expand their business scope. stimulated the performance of their stocks.

  Thus, although the performance of the S&P index was not so outstanding, Carl Icahn relied on the rise of these stocks. In the second half of 1997 and the first half of 1998, his fund performance far outperformed the corresponding index.

  At this time, Carl Icahn was very dissatisfied, but deep down in his heart, he still longed for this economic war to continue. At present, he has targeted the Japanese banking industry. According to their analysis, the Japanese financial industry will undergo a large-scale restructuring, which will bring enormous pressure to the US banking industry, so Carl Icahn has already shorted Less stocks of big banks such as Citigroup, Chase, Chemical Bank, etc.

"Mr. Carl, do you really want this war to end as soon as possible?" Jefferson glanced at Carl Icahn with a smile and nodded slightly, "I have to say frankly that this war is far from over. .but…"

   Having said this, he paused, deliberately giving off a pass. But the people present were all old foxes, and no one answered at all. After an embarrassing silence for half a minute, Jefferson could only touch the tip of his nose, and continued: "According to our previous agreement, all charges against you have been withdrawn. Prior to this, all charges including insider trading It was revoked, I think, this should be good news!"

"Oh, my God, this is really good news!" Soros exaggeratedly opened his arms and waved them in the air for a long time. When everyone looked at him, he retracted his arms unsatisfactorily, with a faint smile on his face. "Just pity me, the old man. The money lost in this war is far more than the money that those charges need to settle! God, I really shouldn't agree to you!"

  The essence of American society is a commercial society, and almost everything can be traded, including laws. Just like the charges against these funds and banks, when there is conclusive evidence and the accused party is sure that he cannot be exonerated, the best option is to reach a settlement with the prosecution.

  Reaching a settlement means that the accused party gets out of prison, etc. under conditions such as pleading guilty and accepting a fine. Of course, these settlements do not represent flexibility in the letter of the law, but rather save costs and taxpayer money. For example, if a suspect is charged with first-degree murder and the prosecution does not have sufficient evidence, his defense lawyer will consider reaching a settlement with the prosecution on charges of second-degree murder or manslaughter. For one thing, the suspect is most likely not to be sentenced to death, but to jail. The prosecution also saved a series of procedures and costs such as investigation, going to court, testifying, and inviting a jury.

  Soros’ losses in Indonesian rupiah are calculated in billions of dollars. This cost definitely exceeds the possible settlement amount of the charges. This is what Soros is extremely unhappy about.

"Are you losing money?" Jefferson's expression was astonished, he stared at Soros with wide eyes, and after looking at Soros from head to toe several times, he said teasingly, "If I read correctly, you It should be Mr. Soros who is the most popular. Whether it is in the United States, Europe, or Asia, everyone is talking about how you made money in this war. Now, tell me, you lost money ?Mr. Soros, are you sure you are not kidding me?"

"I absolutely promise, I didn't mean to be joking!" Soros snorted extremely unhappily, then he looked directly into Jefferson's eyes and said word by word, "Of course, I also made money, but In any case, President Gore is intervening in the situation in Indonesia, so we should be notified!"

   "I have seen shameless ones, but I have never seen such shameless ones!" Julian Robertson, who was sitting next to Soros, cursed secretly in his heart. You have to say that you have lost money even though you have made money. How thick-skinned do you have to be to say such a thing?

  Of course, while thinking this way, he automatically ignored himself. Some disgraceful means used by Tiger Fund in this war are almost as shameless as Soros's current "crying poor".

   "So that's the case!" Jefferson finally understood that Soros was not dissatisfied with the so-called "losing money". In fact, he had already attributed Soros' complaints to "nonsense". It wasn't until Soros said that "President Gore intervened in the situation in Indonesia" that he suddenly realized.

"Sorry, Mr. Soros." Jefferson straightened his suit and said sternly, "This is Mr. Vice President's decision, a high-level state secret. So I'm sorry, I can't tell you, anyone here revealed."

Having said that, seeing that everyone's faces darkened, Jefferson sighed in his heart, and then continued: "However, everyone, please rest assured. What we have to do next is to continue this war." And I will definitely let everyone know the decision made by the government as soon as possible. In this way, everyone here should have no similar complaints, and we will cooperate very happily!"

   "What, this war will continue?"

  A surprised voice sounded immediately, and it was Ralph, the president of Salomon Brothers, who spoke. In this economic war, large American investment banks, including Merrill Lynch, Goodman, and Salomon Brothers, acted as pawns. They spread all kinds of news in the market in order to achieve the purpose of turmoil and panic investor confidence. After everything is ready, hedge funds will take over the impact on the money market or capital market.

  Due to the sudden backlash and the heavy positions in the brokerage channel of the exchange, the reputation and reputation of these investment banks in Southeast Asia began to be damaged. The most famous one is Stanley (Hong Kong). Two days before the listing of a super IPO in charge of its partner Joaquin Corporation, their chief strategist suddenly announced that he was bearish on Hong Kong stocks, which almost caused the failure of this IPO. . Afterwards, Wang Qi, the chairman of Huajin Company's Huafang shareholder Commercial Bank, criticized Stanley Company so harshly that their executives had to fly from New York to Yanjing overnight to explain everything to the other party.

  Generally speaking, the main profit point of an investment bank is divided into two parts, one part comes from commission fees for underwriting IPOs, bonds or additional issuance, and the other important part comes from proprietary trading. The former needs to have sufficient contacts and good reputation in the capital market, while talking about the local market will destroy their hard-won reputation to a certain extent.

  Although I have made a lot of money in the self-operated business, there have been different voices in the investment bank about participating in these things. Although the overall profit may not be much different from the previous fiscal year, the profit point has shifted from the investment banking business to the self-operated business. The top executives from the two have been fighting openly and secretly, and now the sales and trading departments in the self-operated business have become more popular because of this, and the top executives from investment banks are almost out of breath.

  Some senior executives in the investment bank are very upset! Yes, they do have reasons to be unhappy! The economies of these countries or regions have been screwed up by this war, and it is difficult to recover in the short term. Without companies listed, they can't expect to get commissions.

  Ralph is one of these people. So even though he knew in his heart that he might get all the stares and contempt, he still had to do it because it was a matter of life and death.

"If you don't agree, then you just quit!" Before Jefferson answered, a cold voice sounded, it was Julian Robertson, "Without our cooperation, relying on your research ability, don’t expect to be able to retain customers with large funds. In addition, I verbally announced that if you withdraw, we will immediately abandon the economic channel of Salomon Brothers, and then you will not even have that pitiful commission!”

"Maybe I have to consider whether to continue to hire you as my financial advisor!" At this time, Carl Icahn also stood up and threatened, "Ralph, we are old friends. In fact, many people here are Your old friend. But if you really intend to get in our way of getting rich, I believe we will kick you out without hesitation. In the name of God, I swear, yes, I do mean it!"

   Next, no one continued to speak. But most of the people looked at Ralph with faint unkind eyes. As the saying goes, "blocking people's money is like killing their parents", and this principle is correct everywhere.

   "Then..." After the scene was silent for a while, Jefferson, the host of the meeting, finally stepped forward to smooth things over, "Mr. Ralph, I believe you will make a wise choice, right?"

"Yes!" Ralph forced a smile and replied feebly. Then he lowered his head and thought to himself, "Damn it, this **** world. Anyway, I can't do it in Salomon Brothers." If I stay in the position of president, I might as well go to Long-Term Capital Management Company. Anyway, this company is also built with a team of Salomon Brothers executives. There are many old friends of mine in it. I believe I will not be rejected. These hedge funds are really It's too damn, **** it, I'm going into a hedge fund too!"

"Okay, then we have no objections." Jefferson nodded with satisfaction, showing a bright smile at the audience, "We only have one goal next, which is to destroy Hong Kong with all our strength, which has just been taken back by Red Huaxia. area."

   "It needs to be explained that this time we will not leave as before when we have made enough capital, but will completely destroy the Hong Kong market. Therefore, the code name of this operation is 'Occupy Central'."

  Finally, Jefferson said forcefully.

   Thanks to book friend James Wuwukong for voting for the monthly ticket!

  

  

  (end of this chapter)