Thursday, February 9.

Singapore, in an office building.

Lin Zuhui and Octopus Bank's vice chairman and president, Ho Cheong Hung, are standing behind the futures traders.

This is the futures and options trading arm of Octopus Bank in Singapore, and although Octopus Bank is primarily a commercial bank, it inherits the original business of China Commercial Bank. Therefore, whether it is Lin Zuhui's foreign exchange speculation or futures speculation, it is through the trading department of his own bank.

In this way, the source of assets can be concealed, after all, the most you can find is Octopus Bank; Octopus Bank's trading department is open to the public.

"How much money has been invested so far?" Lin Zuhui asked with a calm expression on his face.

The manager of the Singapore trading department is a foreigner named Willis, and he immediately replied seriously: "Octopus Bank's own funds have been shorted for $120 million, and the average short-selling index is 19,350 points. After the Great Kansai earthquake in Japan, we have made 1.2 times our book profit, and the Nikkei is currently at 18,450 points. ”

Willis was calm, but excited inside. It is an honor for him to be able to communicate with the stock god face-to-face.

And the boss is very calm, facing an investment of $120 million and a high leverage of 25 times, the boss has no demeanor at all.

Lin Zuhui asked again: "It's not unusual for a big earthquake to fall like this. Either someone is bucking the market, or the sequelae have not yet come. ”

seems to be talking to himself, in fact, Lin Zuhui knows that there are two reasons:

Someone is backing up, not surprisingly, a Singaporean trader at the Bank of Baring; In his previous life, this trader single-handedly caused the collapse of a famous British bank for more than 200 years, setting a world record - the most cheating boss employee; It was not the Bank of Bahrain that asked him to operate like this, but the trader took advantage of the loophole of the Bank of Bahrain - the wrong bank account to buy a large number of Nikkei futures indexes, which directly caused a loss of $1.5 billion; This series of problems can be called the negative textbook of the banking industry.

Therefore, don't think that there has been a fuel treasure incident in the mainland, and such a strange case has also occurred in a financial country like the United Kingdom. A trader used a large amount of money to speculate on futures indexes, and the British headquarters checked several times and found no problems.

Speaking of which, this time Lin Zuhui asked Octopus Bank to intervene in the short selling of the Nikkei, in addition to knowing that the Japanese earthquake would cause the Nikkei to plummet, there was also the case of the collapse of the Bank of Bahrain that reminded him - make some money and go to the Bank of Bahrain.

Moreover, there is a trader from the Bank of Bahrain who buys 'long orders' for more than $20 billion (with a margin of about $1 billion), which results in a huge trading volume and can be completely killed.

Including New Era Group, it also shorted more than 500 million Hong Kong dollars of Nikkei index futures index.

Ho Changhong is also a financial elite and a banking professional, so he said: "Since the boss thinks so, then we are in a situation of steady profit, and we can wait for the Nikkei index to fall with peace of mind." ”

At this time, the futures index can be closed at any time, in the case of a counterparty. In the absence of a counterparty, there is only a waiting date for delivery.

He Changhong thought that Lin Zuhui was not at ease, so he specially brought himself to Singapore for inspection.

Unexpectedly, Lin Zuhui just thought about it a little, and immediately issued an order: "Continue to short the Nikkei and give another $60 million quota." ”

Everyone was shocked, and the boss was playing seriously.

Willis immediately said, "Okay, I'll arrange it right away!" "After that, take action immediately.

Then, Lin Zuhui asked Ho Changhong: "How are you preparing for overseas expansion?" ”

Ho Cheong Hung reported: "After several years of development, Octopus Bank has met the conditions for overseas expansion in terms of human resources and management system. The government of Singapore has agreed to open a branch here, and Thailand, Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries are also negotiating."

Lin Zuhui nodded with satisfaction and said, "We have to build a global financial network as soon as possible!" ”

The financial environment of many countries is open, and this is also the result of the struggle and deception of financial bandits in Europe and the United States. For example, in Southeast Asian countries, Thailand's economy began to soar in the 80s, and it once considered itself a developed country, which is the reason for developing the capital market; Of course, the harvest of European and American capital is not ambiguous at all.

To put it simply, why should European and American countries let those countries develop financial markets, because they are confident in their financial capabilities and ahead of the rest of the countries, so they want everyone to open up; It's like the real estate developers in Xiangjiang are now beating the real estate developers in the mainland, one has been playing for decades, and the other has just eaten a full meal, how can they play?

In the Asian financial crisis in the previous life, South Korea almost went bankrupt, and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) is equivalent to holding a gun and pointing it at the South Koreans, either opening up South Korea's financial market or going bankrupt in the country. In this way, European and American capital, led by Wall Street, have seized South Korea's industries.

Of course, as long as you have money, everyone can enter the Korean market, after all, the opening is not for a certain country, but for all. Therefore, Lin Zuhui can't eat meat, but it's no problem to gnaw a bone and drink soup.

He Changhong always felt that the boss had something to say, and muttered in his heart whether the boss had found the target of acquiring an overseas bank?

"Boss, rest assured, we will definitely forge ahead and develop Octopus Bank!" He Changhong swore and promised.

Lin Zuhui nodded, Octopus Bank had already earned all the historical deficits last year, and now the annual net profit is as high as more than 1 billion Hong Kong dollars, which can be regarded as a leader in the banking industry.

In fact, he doesn't value the commercial banking business, as long as it develops steadily, after all, Hong Kong has 6 million people, how much deposits can it absorb; He is interested in the ability to form a global investment banking network to facilitate the investment and dispatch of his own funds.

Bank of Bahrain Singapore Futures & Options Trading Division.

Futures manager Nick Lisson was like a gambler at this point, buying heavily Nikkei futures, and he could get £10 million a day from London.

Last December, at a conference on Bahrain's financial outcomes in New York, 250 Bahraini bankers around the world hailed him as a hero of Bahrain and gave him a long and enthusiastic round of applause.

This makes the ambition to make more money for the Bank of Bahrain.

Although the Kansai earthquake has caused him a lot of losses, he believes that more than ten days have passed, and the Nikkei index has not plummeted, so it will definitely bottom out.

"I'm going to make a lot of money!" Nick Lisson

A trader's voice came: "Manager, someone is selling a lot of short, do you want to take orders!" ”

"Pick it up, give it all to me next, we have 10 million pounds a day, the Nikkei is about to rebound, let those fools lose and jump off the building!"

There is no doubt that the trader has him, and the manager is a hero of Bahrain.

Nick Reeson asked, "How many Nikkei futures and Japanese government bond contracts do we have?" ”

"50,000 Nikkei futures, 20,000 Japanese government bond contracts," one trader said. ”

Nick Lisson laughed arrogantly: "Good, the more we buy, the more we earn!" When I'm done, I'll give you a vacation, and then I'll go to Las Vegas for a week, and American girls for a night. ”

"Thank you, Manager!" Several traders said happily, and then started to operate like chickens.

Nick Reeson was not completely confident and excited at this time, but more of a madness, and behind this madness was that in 1992 he set up a 'wrong account' of '88888' at the request of Gordon Bause, who was in charge of liquidation in London. This was a normal 'wrong account' in the operation of the financial system, recording minor errors and dealing with them in Singapore on their own, so as not to trouble the work in London.

It was this 'wrong account' that led to today's irreversible situation, at first his subordinates recorded the mistake in the 'wrong account' (concealment) and lost £20,000 because of the wrong client's transaction, and then a friend of his also made a lot of mistakes and he recorded them in the 'wrong account'.

But there are at least three questions that plague him: first, how to make up for these mistakes; second, how to avoid the internal audit of the London headquarters at the end of the month after the error was credited to the "88888" account; The third is that SIMEX asks them to make a margin call every day, and they will calculate how much the Singapore branch loses every day.

In order to make up for the mistakes of his employees, Lisson transferred the commissions he earned to the account, but the premise was, of course, that these mistakes were not too large, and the amount of losses caused was not too large, but the mistakes caused by George were indeed too big. In order to make enough money to cover all the losses, Lisson took on more and more risks, and he was engaged in a large number of straddle trades at the time, because the Nikkei was stable at the time, and Lisson would earn option premiums from the more trades. If you're unlucky and the Nikkei moves drastically, this trade will cost Bahrain a lot of money.

In this way, he began to fill in the holes all the time, and began to make fake checks to pay the London headquarters, and finally got to where he is today.

"I'll stop this time when I make a lot of money!" After calming down, Nick Lisson thought so.

Beginning in mid-February, the Nikkei began to continue to fall sharply.

On February 23, the Nikkei stock price index fell sharply, 276.6 points, and closed at 17,885 points.

On the same day, Nick Lisson finally realized that he could not make up for his losses, so he was forced to flee in a hurry.

At this time, the Singapore trading department of the Bank of Bahrain held more than 60,000 long futures contracts, and in the face of the rise in Japanese government bonds, it held more than 26,000 short contracts, and the resulting losses surged to a staggering 8. £600 million.

The bankruptcy of the Bank of Bahrain is a foregone conclusion.

On the morning of February 27, Lin Zuhui learned that at half past nine o'clock yesterday evening, the Bank of England, the central bank of the United Kingdom, had no choice but to announce the liquidation of the Bank of Bahrain without coming up with other rescue plans, looking for a buyer and taking on debts.

At the same time, the London Clearing House said that after consultation with the relevant parties, the Bank of Bahrain will be treated as an insolvency, and in accordance with the power granted by the relevant law, it will close the Bahrain proprietary open positions and transfer the open positions of its agent customers to other members for processing.

Lin Zuhui knows that the opportunity has come!

Founded in 1763 by Sir Francis Bahrain, the Bank of Bahrain quickly became a great success in the international financial sector due to its flexibility and innovation. It also has a wide range of activities, whether it is to refine copper ore in the Congo, to trade wool from Australia, or to dig the Panama Canal.

Unlike ordinary commercial banks, the Bank of Bahrain does not develop ordinary customer deposit business, so its sources of funds are relatively limited, and its business expertise is corporate finance and investment management. In the 90s, it began to develop overseas, carried out a wide range of investment activities in emerging markets, and in 1994 alone, it successively opened offices in China, India, Pakistan, South Africa and other places, and its business network was mainly in emerging countries and regions in Asia and Latin America.

What Lin Zuhui lacks is an investment bank like the Bank of Bahrain, and if he is included in the Octopus Financial Group, he will be equivalent to extending his financial tentacles into the world.

So, he soon decided to lead his team to the UK to prepare to buy the Bank of Bahrain.

He knew that the Bank of Bahrain might only be worth £1, but it might need to inject up to $1 billion or more.

But this time Octopus Bank earned about $1 billion on Nikkei.

In less than three months, it is more cost-effective to pick up a company that has been hundreds of years old for nothing.

Of course, there may be competitors, but try it too!

Even if the acquisition fails, at least 1 billion US dollars will be earned!

On the same day, Lin Zuhui's private plane took off from Xiangjiang and headed for London.

On the plane were senior executives of Octopus Financial Group, as well as financial foreign aid such as Yuan Tianfan and Liang Botao.

(End of chapter)