After following up with CNOOC's second IPO, everything went well. I spent the weekend at Dumei Point Manor on the West Coast. Chen Qing set off for China in the new week.

Simon also flew to the East Coast again.

This is October 9, 2000.

on Monday.

There is less than a month left before the voting for the 54th U.S. presidential election on November 7.

The private plane was boarded at 8 a.m. on the West Coast. Due to the time difference, Simon arrived in New York. It was already around 2 p.m. on the East Coast time.

After leaving the airport, Simon did not rest and rushed directly to Cersei Capital headquarters in Rockefeller Center, Midtown Manhattan.

Cersei Capital is under the office floor of Apollo Management. Apollo Management President Leon Black is already waiting, and there is also the chief financial officer of Apollo Online, named Rock Delkins.

A meeting agreed in advance was about Simon receiving a financial audit report from here on the weekend.

The audit target is a "famous" name in Simon's memory: Enron Company.

In history, Enron's financial scandal not only led to the largest corporate bankruptcy case in US history, but also triggered a series of chain reactions. One of them was the wave of new technology that had collapsed at that time, and was once again slaughtered, triggering another round of plunge in the Nasdaq Index.

After history was beyond recognition by Simon, the big butterfly, I forgot about it. Unexpectedly, this company headquartered in Texas took the initiative to connect with the Westeros system.

First of all, we have to mention Enron, an energy company headquartered in Houston, Texas, established in the 1980s corporate merger wave. Its early days mainly engaged in natural gas business and had a huge natural gas pipeline network in the southern United States.

In 1985, after the establishment of Enron, it began to expand continuously until now for a long time, and its business shifted from natural gas to various fields such as electricity, water, and papermaking.

After the rise of the new technology wave, An Ran followed the pulse of the times and deepened his tentacles into the telecommunications field, mainly involved in broadband infrastructure business, thus intersecting with American Online.

In order to accelerate the expansion of its own network and reduce costs, some states and counties in the south have chosen to rent some of Enron's broadband lines, and some also involve marketing, after-sales and other cooperation.

This happened.

As the Nasdaq index continues to rise, Enron, whose business also has a new technology label, has recently exceeded US$70 billion. However, in just two years, the company's stock price has increased by nearly 300%, which is equivalent to the increase in the previous decade.

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

At the peak of the current Internet bubble, as a new technology concept stock, the price-to-earnings ratio exceeds 100 times, which is actually normal.

The problem is that Enron is not satisfied, so he recently came up with a telecommunications expansion plan that plans to invest US$3 billion in the next two years, intending to further expand its broadband line network and even plan to connect network cables to Mexico.

Anron himself cannot afford the huge amount of $3 billion in funds. Even though the company claims to have an annual revenue of $100 billion, natural gas sales, as the focus of revenue, actually belong to the low-profit field due to price control.

Therefore, only external financing can be carried out.

Even though the Nasdaq index has already flown into the sky, making too many people feel crumbling, there are still a lot of potential investments involved in new technologies.

This includes the Westeros system itself.

A.O.O.com and Enron cooperated and obtained the materials as soon as possible. After contacting the two parties, they introduced Apollo Management, a subsidiary of Cersei Capital, which is mainly responsible for investment and mergers.

However, compared to American Online or other crazy investors who are interested in spending money on the technology stock field, as a Wall Street veteran, the team led by Leon Black started in the 1980s, from junk bonds to capital hedging, from vulture investment to super mergers and acquisitions, and have seen too many ways to play, so they soon discovered the problem of Anron.

A big problem.

The first is the telecommunications business related to this expansion. After all, to expand, of course, investors must look at their investment results in the past few years.

Apollo Management Company Interior of a conference room.

Leon Black personally explained some of these joints to Simon: "For the Internet industry, we have many investments, so we are very clear about the investment return ratio in related fields in recent years. However, the data given by Enron, the investment income part is obviously much higher than our similar investments. It happens to be some data from American Online. We compared it and immediately found the problem. Simon, look here..."

As she said that, Leon Black retried a page of PPT on the big screen in front of the conference room, which was some table data, and then said: "...A broadband network leasing agreement jointly with Enron in Austin, Texas, agreed to be 5 years and 35 million US dollars, installment payment, but Enron deliberately erased the five-year contract period in the financial data. For those who don't know the truth, they will subconsciously believe that Enron and American Online's agreement is 1 year and 35 million US dollars, which is equivalent to indirectly increasing the financial report by 5 times. Moreover, this is just a small means.

After in-depth research, we found that Enron's public financial report, not just telecommunications, other energy, electricity and other main businesses, is full of false data, such as counting a large number of forward sales contracts that may not be cashed into revenue, such as placing multiple debts under the name of subsidiaries to whitewash the parent company's balance sheet. In the past five years, Enron's revenue has increased from US$13 billion to US$110 billion, an increase of more than 8 times. Through recent surveys, I am sure that at least half of the revenue data are absolutely fake."

After saying that, Leon Black returned to the conference table and sat down, looking at his boss who was leaning on the office chair and tapping on the table with one hand and holding his chin with the other hand.

Simon waited for Black to sit down before speaking: "Which accounting firm is Anron?"

"Anderson," said Leon Black, quickly flipping through the documents in front of him and pushing a folder over: "In the past two years, Anderson's Houston division has received $25 million and $27 million in audit fees from Enron, respectively, which is equivalent to 30% of the annual revenue of the firm's division, and 70% higher than the normal rate."

Seal fee.

This thought flashed through Simon's mind.

According to the requirements of color C, listed companies in the United States have a third-party accounting firm that connects, which is considered a means of supervision.

However, now it seems that it is obviously useless.

Oh.

Thinking about a series of companies under its own, Simon curled his lips slightly and laughed silently.

It's useless.

Therefore, there is no need to ask more about the board of directors, it is nothing more than a community of interests that does not perform any supervisory functions.

As for why Anron's management is so almost crazy about making false accounts, even if there is no memory of the past, it is not difficult to understand what Simon has seen and heard over the years.

In the final analysis, it is still profit.

The income of corporate executives, especially those of listed companies, is usually directly linked to the company's revenue, stock price and other figures. The more impressive these numbers are, the higher the rewards they will receive.

Thinking of this, Simon simply flipped through the documents pushed by Leon Black.

In addition to the details of its cooperation with Anderson, one of the world's five largest accounting firms, there is also information about Enron's board members, detailing the interests of some of the members who claim to be independent directors and Enron's related non-profit organizations.

Obviously, An Ran’s matter has been checked out here.

Looking up at Leon Black and American Online's chief financial officer Rock Delkins, noticing that they had some expectations in their eyes, Simon asked again: "Who know about this?"

Leon Black said: "One of us, no more than one pair of hands, there is no problem keeping it confidential."

Simon nodded slightly.

The thing that happened in front of us was definitely not just the Westeros system that avoided an investment trap.

Simply put, this is a bomb.

As long as the Westeros system throws this bomb out, once it is detonated, it will not only blow up the Nasdaq, which is already at its peak, but also affect the upcoming US presidential election vote, which can be said to have a single blow to the whole body.

As for what benefits can you get from home?

Great benefits!

Just like Simon's operation in 1987, two words, shorting.

If the bomb Anron is thrown out, it will not only blow up the Nasdaq, but there is almost no possibility of the New York Stock Exchange being spared. The three major U.S. stock indexes and even global stock markets will suffer a severe blow under the chain reaction.

As long as the Westeros system establishes enough short positions around related trends, it is easy to harvest billions and tens of billions of dollars in a short period of time.

Of course, the premise is that you must be careful and you must not know that this is the Westeros system. Otherwise, you may not even know how many enemies you have created this hand. Maybe one day, someone will secretly repay some trouble.

After jumping on the smooth conference table, Simon finally retracted his thoughts, closed the folder in front of him, and said to Leon Black: "You can contact Jim later, and make a unified arrangement and start setting up short positions in a targeted manner. However, without me reminding you, you should understand that my only requirement is as confidential as possible."

Jim, of course it was James Rebled.

After all, this opportunity is potential short-selling income of tens of billions of dollars. If Simon lets go, it will be difficult to explain to the people below.

Then follow the trend.

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

It is obvious that while releasing this news and exposing the new technology bubble, it is certainly not conducive to the Democratic Party's election situation to some extent.

However, things are not absolute.

After all, Enron is a Texas company, and as a Republican presidential candidate, Bush Jr. is currently the governor of Texas.

The Enron scandal exposes the new technology bubble and wants the stock market to impact voters, it will take some time to brew. Even if the news is released tomorrow, it will have a real impact. Perhaps the election has ended. However, Al Gore can immediately find an excuse to attack Bush Jr. to be unfavorable to Texas corporate financial supervision.

It immediately affected Bush's support rate.

Anyway, this bomb exploded immediately, and it is hard to say who will win.

Just remove this variable.

In any case, after several months of election sprint, less than a month after the election vote, from being far behind by Gore at first, to now, Bush's spending rate is comparable to Gore.

As for the reason.

Very complex.

Perhaps it was because of Clinton's eight years in power, even though his performance was excellent, it finally made the public feel a little tired. In addition, the scandals of the current president still affected his old partner who had worked with him for eight years.

Perhaps, there are also campaign strategies for both sides.

Under Simon's secret operation, new technologies and the Internet did not become the focus of this election. After all, if you don't pay attention, the flames may burn on the Westeros system. Simon will not allow such things to happen.

However, there are still many topics to discuss.

For example, medical insurance reform.

Clinton was in office for eight years and successfully implemented a new health insurance bill.

For those who are not aware of the situation, the Medical Insurance Act should definitely benefit more people. In fact, just as the medical reform once brought more unnecessary burdens to many public and national finances, Clinton's medical reform, because of its focus on bottom-level subsidies, increased the burden on the middle class, actually caused dissatisfaction among many people.

For example, tax cuts.

This is even more a killer weapon.

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

The Republican Party, of course, is tax cuts.
To be continued...