Chapter 66: The Citi Crisis
"Can you tell us where you got all this information?" Grubb, chairman of the board of directors of the company, was a little curious, and at the same time asked very nervously, after all, it is about tens of billions of dollars of venture capital, if the company loses money on this order, then let alone the future, it will not be able to pass now. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info
Bratt and Jacob also expressed great concern, after all, almost all of their property was involved, and if they failed, they would probably have only one way to jump off the building.
"Of course, if you're willing to join the game, then I can give you specific information." Li Mubai nodded, knowing what they meant, but he stretched out two fingers and said, "But you have to raise more than $2 billion in a short period of time, remember, it's everyone, no matter how many rich people are willing to contribute behind you, the upper and lower limits are so much." ”
"$2 billion is not much, as long as we can come up with accurate key intelligence, then we have no problem." Barrett looked left and right, and both tech tycoons said they had no objections.
"In that case, I'm going to talk about the whole plan for shorting at Citi." Li Mubai straightforwardly pulled over a large mobile screen, stretched out his hand on it and began to write, "You can see the distribution of several debts currently in Citigroup's hands, including normal foreign commercial loans, personal credit loans, etc., aside from these two normal financial debts, the rest is the focus of our attention, bonds." ”
According to the data released by Citigroup at a press conference last month, on August 22, the total size of various types of bonds in their hands is as high as 227 billion US dollars, of which more than 20 billion US dollars can be obtained in profits every year, and this figure may be possible last year; But on the eve of the imminent outbreak of the Wall Street financial crisis, this figure is absolutely deceptive, I have here a top-secret document about Citigroup's internal income in the second quarter, according to its records, Citigroup in the second quarter on bond earnings, 85% of the income plummeted, and even the document itself, there is a deliberate falsification. With the narration of Li Mubai's words, several people couldn't sit still all of a sudden.
Grubb exclaimed, "This is impossible, Citigroup did not show any abnormalities in the dividend to shareholders and all natural shareholders in the second quarter." ”
"Of course, there will be no abnormality, but have you noticed that behind the decline in the overall net profit of 70% that Citigroup said is caused by the recession of the entire market economy, for example, personal credit loans, which have been showing an upward trend, fell by 26 percentage points in the second quarter, but according to our survey, Citi did not show a significant decline in personal loans in the last quarter, and even rose slightly. Where does this part of the profit go? My biggest personal estimate is that it has been misappropriated from bonds. Li Mubai shrugged his shoulders, although there was a lot of speculation in his words, he was very sure.
Because these materials themselves are the most top-secret information of Citi's statistical analysis department.
Barrett took off his glasses and wiped them carefully a few times before putting them back on, and said with a very solemn face, "Is the crisis already so serious?" ”
He asked another question, you must know that as a technology company, it also has a certain amount of bonds, of course, most of these bonds are above the B+ risk level, but if the Wall Street financial turmoil has developed to the point that a behemoth like Citi has to make false accounts, then there will be many variables in the B+ or above bonds in their hands, perhaps the best way now is to sell immediately to avoid taking too much huge risks.
Li Mubai nodded and said, "The situation has reached the most critical moment, just yesterday, Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke held a meeting of the chairmen of the eastern financial consortium in the United States and the twelve Federal Reserve Banks under the Federal Reserve at the home of a congressman leader in Huasheng D, and he has made it very clear that the Federal Reserve will not intervene in the affairs of Wall Street at this time, and everyone must save themselves." ”
"Oh my God~ why haven't we gotten any news?" Grubb, chairman of Amex, was simply stunned, he would never have imagined that the financial giants led by the Federal Reserve were holding a key meeting to deal with the situation on Wall Street, and they did not invite him.
"Of course they won't invite you, because Amex is also one of their targets, and you actually have more than $20 billion in bonds below B+ in your hands, I don't know if I'm right?" Li Mubai laughed when he heard this, he really couldn't understand the thinking of Americans sometimes.
As the name suggests, this kind of bond is a kind of bond with a return rate of more than 9%, which is used by listed companies to expand their operations and acquire the target company.
This is the meaning of junk bonds, the rate of return is amazing, but it is also accompanied by huge risks, even if you just buy the company's junk bonds, the next second the company will default, and even bankruptcy and liquidation, so that the bonds about the company in your hands will become a pile of waste paper.
Who can withstand such a thrill? I'm afraid there are only capitalists who will do anything for money.
"If things really go the way you say, then I will immediately freeze all transactions of the company's bond investment management department, and strive to change all junk bonds." Grubb couldn't sit still, although the company's total number of bonds below B+ was told by Li Mubai, but what he was nervous about was not this, but the tragic future described by the other party.
B+ junk bonds themselves have great risk, once the target company has investment mistakes, financing failures, and even the relationship with banks in normal operation, it will affect whether the return rate of the bond will be realized, but now with the intensification of the financial turmoil on Wall Street, I am afraid that this risk will be magnified countless times.
Even a giant like Bell, which is one of the world's top five investment banks, can suffer a huge loss of $45 billion in just three months, so these financial companies engaged in related industries lack the ability to resist risks.
Because as the financial turmoil intensifies, the whole market must be filled with a collective pessimism about junk bonds, and once people's hearts change, then these companies that issue junk bonds must bear the pressure of the whole society.
Originally, many of their companies were already in a state of non-performing operation, that is, the ratio of total assets to net assets had reached the warning level, and it seemed that the market and operating income were quite good every year, but behind this, they relied on a large number of bank loans and junk bonds to maintain.
For example, a supermarket group in Los Angeles has annual revenues of more than $6 billion and net profits of more than $500 million, but in the past four years, the company has expanded its franchise stores from 750 to 2,820.
They don't even need to use the principal of a branch, they only need to complete the market expansion through bank financing, correspondingly, the investors who pay the money get the company's bonds, but a group with a net worth of only 1.2 billion US dollars has issued a total of 4 billion US dollars in bonds, and has also undertaken about 800 million US dollars in bank loans, all the principal and interest, with their current net profit of 500 million US dollars per year, it will take at least ten years or more to pay off in full.
In this case, the bank will also carefully assess the group's ability to repay the loan, and most of the time will choose not to lend, but the group has to choose to continue to lend in order to repay the huge interest pressure, and after the bank closes the door, they must persuade some large investment banks to undertake their new round of debt financing through private lobbying, so as to avoid the terrible result of their own capital chain breaking and bankruptcy.
As long as they can persuade the investment banks to raise funds, there will be investors waving cheques to buy them, because in their eyes, bonds are transferable, and in the short term, as long as they have a unique vision, they can make a lot of money, and before the risk is about to come, they can sell it through the trading market, which can effectively avoid losses.
In such a delicate balance, the listed companies, the investment banks, and the investors take what they need, and the banks provide the help of the funds.
But is there really such a good thing in this world? All parties involved are making profits, but the profits themselves must be obtained through the means of industry or speculation, in the slow development of the industry, the speculation is getting higher and higher, so that no one is willing to continue to enter the market to take over, the bubble exploded!
The whole Wall Street is in a rumor, and they all know that it is time to save themselves, and whoever can take the lead in this storm to pick up their own risks will in turn be able to quickly increase their strength and swallow up those opponents who originally competed with them, so as to become the decision-maker of the entire market after the financial crisis is over.
"The banks are already struggling to protect themselves, and JPMorgan Chase is slightly better, and they have passed on about 60 percent of their junk bonds to ordinary investors through a lot of transfers. However, this kind of advance action requires accurate prediction, otherwise there will be huge losses on the books in the short term, and they are also difficult to explain to investors. Li Mubai continued.
"But Citigroup is not so lucky, although they claim that they only have about $6.2 billion in junk bonds, but they ignore that they have about 10 times as many non-performing loans in their hands, and if this landmine is detonated, maybe the whole of Citigroup, and indeed the entire US banking industry, will be irreparably damaged."
"Yes, when junk bonds are worthless, companies that rely on continuing to issue junk bonds to pay off their debts before will have a terrible situation, and a break in the capital chain will force them to file for bankruptcy protection. The most terrible thing is going to happen, the debt crushes the normal company, the bank loans are necrotic, the huge losses will lead to the bankruptcy of the bank credit, a large number of depositors will flood the banks, withdraw their deposits, and then there will be a terrible catastrophe for the whole federation, the whole world. Grubb's mind suddenly conjured up a tragic picture of the world.
Almost without thinking about it, he can know that a new world economic crisis is imminent, and in this economic winter, how many companies can have the last laugh?
But fortunately, Yuntong will definitely be safe and sound, because now that the storm has just begun, they still have a certain amount of time to deal with the bond bombs in their hands, even if they fight for huge losses, they must be solved before they completely turn into a pile of waste paper.
"Based on what I said above, Citigroup is actually in a very disadvantageous position, because they said that the venture capital theory pursued before, in the short term, it does help Citigroup to develop rapidly, and successfully catch up with JPMorgan Chase, to become the world's largest financial services company, but the crisis is also buried at the same time, that is, Citigroup will have a huge loss of book operation this year, according to preliminary estimates, Citigroup in the first eight months, the cumulative operating net profit of 22.3 billion US dollars, But losses on non-performing loans and junk bonds have reached more than $4 billion, including nearly $1.9 billion in loan necrosis and more than $2 billion in bond depreciation. ”
Li Mubai continued to draw dots on the screen, and finally sketched a shocking data map, "With the further intensification of the financial crisis, Citigroup has actually reached a dead end, this part contains non-performing loans, junk bonds of nearly 70 billion US dollars of debt, if it cannot change hands immediately within half a year, then in the third and fourth quarters, Citi will bear a huge loss of more than 15 billion US dollars, in the first half of next year, the crisis will reach its peak, although they still have time to remedy, But it is unlikely that such a large amount of income will be recovered. ”
"In other words, Citi will end up with losses of more than $70 billion?" Barrett asked, with her mouth wide open, shocked.
"More than that!" As a veteran in the financial world, Grubb shook his head with a wry smile and said, "This is a collapse loss, in addition to the $70 billion, Citi will lose at least $100 billion in deposits, and more related losses, in other words, Citigroup has buried the scourge of bankruptcy at this moment, and it is unlikely that they will continue to survive, and the most optimistic estimate may be that after a few years of survival, it will be bought by someone at a very low price." ”