The consortium moves quickly and has to be fast. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

The time has entered the beginning of October, and many companies will publish their financial statements for the third quarter of the year during this time period.

As early as a month ago, many authoritative analysts asserted that once the US Federal Financial Investment Corporation released its third-quarter earnings report, it would trigger a new round of market shocks and may even exacerbate the spread of financial turmoil around the world.

Against this backdrop, conglomerates must work to smooth out their own debt problems so as not to fall into a bigger crisis.

On this point, the demands of all the consortiums were unanimous, and under their force, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Treasury convened the twelve Federal Reserve Banks under their umbrella to discuss Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy protection.

However, everyone knows that this is a meeting to carve up Lehman Brothers, and almost all of the participants did not make any meaningful proposals, after all, the consortium behind them has already made the final decision.

Only the internal management of Lehman Brothers is still dreaming of federal assistance to Lehman to tide over the crisis.

The company's chairman, Richard Fuord, even shouted in front of hundreds of investors at the company's shareholders' meeting, "We are the fourth largest investment bank in the United States, we have total assets of up to $650 billion, and we have clients all over the world, and each of them is a big person." The United States will not abandon us, and the banking community cannot afford the catastrophe caused by our bankruptcy, so the Federal Reserve and the Treasury will certainly use federal funds to help Lehman survive this crisis. ”

It's just that behind the shouting of this vow at the crowd, Richard Forder's repeated pleas for the US federal government to immediately bail out $30 billion in liquidity has been repeatedly denied.

After reassuring investors and the company's majority shareholder, Forde returned to his office, not as calm as he had been in the previous three economic crises, because he was already a 61-year-old man, at an age when he still had the energy to deal with the intricacies of the company, but he could no longer step up to the stage and lobby with passionate words, even to bewitch those in power.

Steve, the CEO of the company's investment banking division, knocked on the door and entered the gloomy office after dealing with a large number of investors, as the latter closed all the curtains and turned off the lights.

"Are you okay? Mr. Steve came to inform him that the brokerage firm had begun to get impatient and was even preparing to sue Lehman Brothers in the U.S. federal court, because the latter embezzled a part of the mortgage funds that the brokerage itself invested in the securities market, which was originally one of the unspoken rules in the industry, but when the cloud of Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy hung over for a long time, no one would send their funds into this bottomless pit.

After listening to the reports, Foul smiled wryly and said, "You know what? The company has lost $60 billion in liquidity over the past six months, and for now, we are on the verge of bankruptcy, as less than $6 billion worth of the $32 billion that has been deposited with the company by other banks. ”

"How is that possible? Sir, if this news were known to the outside world, then we would be frantically targeted by all the investors, who would have sold our shares at all costs. Steve was stupefied by the news.

He never thought that in this kind of stall, those banks would actually fall into the ground, are they really going to die with Lehman Brothers?

Unable to accept this outcome, Steve exclaimed excitedly, "And you should refuse this rude act that violates the spirit of the contract!" Yes, as long as you strongly refuse, then there is no way for them to take away this collateral. ”

"But what if it's about clearing services?" Forde let out a miserable laugh, "Don't I know what will happen if they let them take the collateral deposited in Lehman Brothers?" But you have to remember that in addition to the brokerage and securities markets, there are also financial institutions that are responsible for the final liquidation summary, and Lehman Brothers needs them at the moment, and even cannot do without them. As long as there are three days, three days at most, if we can't get these liquidated funds, then Lehman Brothers will be completely bankrupt. ”

"But if the collateral is taken away, we can't actually survive, and no bank will want to lend to a company that is going to go bankrupt at any time and has no collateral." Steve was stunned by the news.

Even he never imagined that Lehman Brothers would come to such a point, and even in the last second, he swore that this was only a temporary crisis, and that Lehman Brothers had sufficient customer resources and strong connections, and they would temporarily borrow liquidity from other banks to ensure that Lehman Brothers' normal investment was not disturbed.

As long as the trading continues, Lehman Brothers' bonds and financial derivatives of more than $500 billion will still have a certain value, and even if there is a sharp decline now, it may not be able to make it back in the future when the overall economic environment improves.

Investors also think so, after all, a super financial group with total assets of more than 600 billion US dollars will be dozens of times more risk-resistant than ordinary financial institutions, if even Lehman Brothers will go bankrupt, then what financial institutions are trustworthy?

"Now we can only pray that the Federal Treasury and the Federal Reserve will step in, and if they can face up to the impact of Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy, then they will definitely do something to save Lehman Brothers." Until now, Forde still had illusions, after all, if Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, it would inevitably add fuel to the fire of the financial crisis, which was already showing signs of economic crisis.

At that time, the United States will not only pay $30 billion in liquid loans, but even 100 times as much.

Steve was about to nod his head in agreement when he heard the phone ring on his desk.

As if grasping at a life-saving straw, Fored decisively grabbed his mobile phone to answer, "I'm Richard Folder." ”

"Mr. Richard, I'm Jamie Dimon from JPMorgan Chase, and I have very unfortunate news that I must inform you. Just now, the 12 Federal Reserve Banks under the Federal Reserve and the US Federal Treasury Department jointly passed a resolution rejecting all proposals to inject capital into Lehman Brothers, and stipulating that the US federal and all banks will not lend more than one dollar of bailout funds to Lehman Brothers without any collateral. On the other end of the phone, Jamie Dimon said the words in a heavy tone.

Richard Forder was simply stunned, he jerked to his feet and shouted, "This can't be! ”

"Please don't get excited! Mr. Richard, I think it's a shitty resolution, but unfortunately, it's reality, or rather, it was predestined from the start. Lehman, on the U.S. federal bailout list, was crossed out forever. Jamie Damon said angrily, not in the least worried that the latter would not be angry, because no one would continue to have faith in the Federation in such a situation, but Forder's anger was exactly what he needed.

Richard Furder was as he expected, and he flew into a rage, "It's a damn conspiracy, you all deceived me!" ”

"If you're talking about collateral, then I'm sorry! This is just a decision I made to be responsible for the company after the meeting, and you will definitely make this choice! "Jamie Dimon doesn't have any psychological pressure at all, anyway, he is not the only one who has fallen into the well now, and on the other hand, he is the one who kindly informed Richard Ford.

Steve was very puzzled as he listened, what was wrong? Could there be anything more serious than having all shareholders of the company hold an accountability meeting?

Richard didn't know him right now, his whole mind was on talking to Jamie Damon, "Listen! Jamie, if anything goes wrong with Lehman Brothers, then the current situation will be much worse, and the consequences are something that no one wants to see. ”

"Of course, no normal person would sit idly by and watch the impact of Lehman's bankruptcy. But it seems that someone is an exception, and you may be able to look up the details of transactions within your company, and I've been wondering, have you lost control of Lehman? Jamie Dimon chuckled.

When the voice followed the signal to Richard's ears, the latter chuckled inwardly, and directly covered his phone and said to Steve, "Go, bring me the transaction details of all the companies recently, I want to see it myself." ”

Richard Foord's concerns are justified, because most of the company's subsidiaries currently exercise trading and investment management rights alone, and Richard does not have enough shares to control the entire company.

In the case of Lehman Brothers' parent company, his shares are pitiful, although Lehman Brothers is nominally controlled by Amex Brothers, but the latter does not own more than 20% of the shares, in other words, Lehman Brothers is a company jointly controlled by several consortia, no matter which one of them, can have absolute decision-making power, no one.

Steve came back quickly, because these materials would eventually be reported to him, but there were too many documents lately, and the transaction details involved more than $10 million in the list, which could be arranged into several pages of the list, so he didn't have time to control these, and what he had to do now was to try to reassure the company's investors and avoid large-scale divestments.

After a cursory glance, Richard was confused, and he said into the phone, "Jamie, for the sake of past friendships, please tell me what went wrong?!" ”

Jamie Dimon waited quietly for a while, and finally heard the voice on the other side, so he smiled and said, "Richard, I don't want to lie to you, in the past five months, Rockefeller and its Citigroup First Group have exchanged more than $55 billion in equivalent bonds from Lehman Brothers, and now you can see that the value of that part of the bonds, hehe~ is almost worthless." ”

Richard followed the other party's specific instructions and flipped down, if, as Jamie Dimon said, Citigroup has frantically withdrawn its investment in Lehman Brothers in the past five months, especially in the last half month, and stuffed some bonds that no longer have return expectations into Lehman Brothers' subsidiaries under various names.

But in each case, there seems to be nothing wrong with it, and there is no violation of any legal provisions, after all, although these subsidiaries are controlled by Lehman Brothers, they have their own business transaction autonomy, and most of the bonds they exchange are also worthless, in other words, Citi exchanged junk bonds that seem worthless on paper from its own group to Lehman Brothers, and then exchanged for another batch of worthless junk bonds.

"Oh my God, they're premeditating the transfer of losses."

But judging by Richard's experience, this is almost a premeditated misfortune, and the other party is 100% exchanging short-term cashed bonds for long-term cashed bonds in the hands of Lehman Brothers, and on the surface, both are reduced to worthless waste paper, but as the saying goes, time is money.

Most of the part of Citi's exchange will not be fully realized until 2011, even if this part of the bond is no longer valuable, but on the books, they still exist, in other words, Citi handed over the bomb in its hand that was about to detonate in exchange for the bomb in the hands of Lehman Brothers that will explode in a few years.

Jamie Dimon nodded, "Yes, Citigroup can't afford the second loss, their net profit loss in the third quarter is more than $10 billion, if these bombs are allowed to explode together, then Citi will not even survive a year, just like Bear Stearns, into bankruptcy." ”

Richard wiped the cold sweat from his face and pleaded in a low voice, "Tell me, Jamie, what the hell are your plans, Lehman Brothers will not tolerate this betrayal, you have to save us." ”

"Sorry! Richard, now everyone is unable to protect themselves, and if you want to blame it, you can blame this financial derivatives frenzy, which has shrouded almost all of us, and now no one is making a profit, everyone is trying to minimize their losses. ”

"So in order to reduce your own losses, you don't hesitate to let the entire Lehman Brothers strike mines, is that fair?!" Richard roared angrily.

Jamie Dimon didn't reply, and Richard continued to shout frantically, "Give us $30 billion in liquidity, I can bring Lehman Brothers back to life, and you will support me!" Is that right? The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers does you no good. ”

"How could it not be?" Jamie Dimon said in his heart, but on the surface he responded coldly, "It's not for me to decide, you should go to the Treasury and the Federal Reserve, they are the only way to save Lehman Brothers." ”

"I know, you must have joined forces, you want Lehman Brothers to attract attention for you in front, and quietly pass on the losses yourself." Richard seemed to understand something.