Happy Tycoon

The night of September 7, 1998, US Eastern Time, was destined to be a sleepless night.

Because of the time difference, it was already September 8 on Hong Kong Island, which is far away in the Pacific Ocean. Just yesterday, the Hong Kong Island government promulgated a series of new financial policies, which greatly increased the restrictions on international speculators’ speculation. The international speculators who lost their money on the day of the settlement day originally planned to make a comeback this week, but after the promulgation of this series of policies, their way was immediately blocked.

Therefore, these international speculators represented by major investment firms can only look at their own money with tears and hatred, and are firmly trapped by the stock market, stock index futures and foreign exchange market on Hong Kong Island.

On the west side of West Street in New York, there is a building with the house number 200, so this building is the building at 200 West Street in New York.

This building also has a famous name, the Goldman Sachs Building. This 228-meter-high, 44-story building is the global headquarters of Goldman Sachs Group.

Just across the street from the southeast of the Goldman Sachs Building are the two tallest buildings in New York, the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. Among them, the straight-line distance from the North Tower to the Goldman Sachs Building is less than 250 meters.

At this time, in a huge and luxurious office on the top floor of the Goldman Sachs Building, several old men in suits and leather shoes were sitting together frowning and looking at each other.

Mr. Collins, we lost more than 700 million U.S. dollars in this Hong Kong Island blockade against the Hong Kong dollar. How do you ask me to explain this to our partners? Don't forget, on the 19th of next month, our Goldman Sachs The 189 partners of the company are about to gather together for the biennial Goldman Sachs Partner Award Ceremony. This is a major event for us at Goldman Sachs, but this operation you presided over has encountered Waterloo. How do you ask me to explain to the partners?

The person speaking was a white man in his fifties. He was Henry Paulson, who became the executive president and chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs last year. The person he was talking to was Rod Collins, the chief investment officer of Goldman Sachs. An old man in his sixties.

After a pause, Paulson continued: Don't forget, Goldman Sachs is preparing for a public offering recently, but if our losses from this operation are exposed, it will be a fatal blow to the public offering, our partner Let everyone present here get fucked!

Collins, who was sitting opposite Paulson, shrugged his shoulders, What can I do? Everything was fine before. Even on that day, the situation was excellent at the beginning. Although the Hong Kong Island government and the Huaxia government have come up with A huge amount of money came to support the market, but we also have a lot of funds. If there is no huge amount of long funds that suddenly entered the market in the afternoon, even if we cannot win this battle, we will definitely not lose such a big loss. 700 million US dollars, Do you think I am willing to keep this money on the other side of the Pacific Ocean? This is an accident, or a premeditated blocking operation, but it is us who are blocked, not the Hong Kong Island government!

Paulson's face gradually turned red, and he was obviously very angry at this shirk, Then why didn't you monitor the entry of this fund? Where's your monitoring network? Where's your trader? This fund is as high as More than 20 billion Hong Kong dollars, not hundreds of millions of Hong Kong dollars, such a huge sum of money is like an aircraft carrier coming to New York Harbor, you can’t miss it. But why didn’t your people see it?”

What can I do? The flow of the funds is extremely strange. We spent ten days inquiring, but we could only find out that the funds came from Europe that day, not Japan or our Federation. That is Europe, we don’t have the ability to monitor the whole of Europe.”

A chubby old man sitting on the other side knocked on the table with his hand and interrupted Collins. This old man is the current CEO of Goldman Sachs, Ke Sai.

Henry, Rhodes, stop arguing between you two. We are here today to discuss how to resolve this matter, not to blame each other. In the absence of the CEO of Goldman Sachs today, Ke Sai was the on-site administrator. The highest level.

Brilliant as he is, Henry Paulson won't be the new president of Goldman Sachs until next year, and he won't be Treasury secretary until 2006 in the Bush administration. But at this time, Paulson could only suppress his dissatisfaction in the face of Ke Sai's words.

Ke Sai continued to knock on the table, First of all, we must find out the source of the funds, otherwise we will not be able to explain to our partners. Rhodes, you said that the funds came from Europe, so is there any specific situation?

Rod Collins shook his head and said: Sorry, so far we have only found out that the funds came from Europe, but to whom it belongs to, we can't do anything about it for the time being. Our strength in Europe is still relatively weak , especially some banks are not very friendly to us.”

Paulson interjected, Kosai, is it the fault of that fellow Soros? I heard that his funds just turned around in the morning, so he quickly withdrew. I think he got some news. , This is the pain to cut the flesh. Moreover, in terms of this guy's character, it is not impossible for him to cut us back and make up for his loss in the morning.

Ke Sai shook his head and said: It should not be Soros. This guy's background is a bit deep. There are several congressmen and senior officials in Washington behind him. It is his initiative to take action against Hong Kong Island. If he dares to turn his back on that day , Those people behind him will not let him go, and I checked, Soros's Quantum Fund also lost more than 800 million US dollars that morning. He just saw the opportunity and fled, otherwise his losses would be even greater many!

Is that Robertson? His Tiger Fund is deeply mired in the depreciation of the ruble. In this case, will he get back part of the profits in the Hong Kong Island market? Paulson asked.

Collins, who had had a quarrel with Paulson just now, shook his head and said, It's not Robertson. His Tiger Fund and Jaguar Fund didn't make any big moves that day, and most of his funds were channeled through federal banks. If he had If there is a big move, it is impossible to hide it from us.

Ke Sai nodded and said: That's right, Robertson has invested all his funds in Russia and Japan. He has no extra funds to attack Hong Kong Island, so he doesn't have the ability to spend 20 billion Hong Kong dollars.

Who else could it be? Our old friend Morgan Stanley or Merrill Lynch?

The two investment banks that Paulson asked about are both extremely famous large multinational investment banks in the United States. Needless to say, Morgan Stanley is backed by the Morgan family and **** Bank, and its strength is well-deserved now The world's No. 1 investment bank, Goldman Sachs at this time can't compare with Morgan Stanley.

Although Merrill Lynch is a newly emerging large investment bank, this investment bank is backed by the California consortium, and Bank of America is its biggest backer, so its strength should not be underestimated.

The Salomon Brothers, who used to be awesome in the investment bank, are no longer able to do it now, and they are about to die, so Paulson didn't mention this former world's number one investment bank at all.

Ke Sai shook his head and said, Henry, it's not Morgan Stanley or Merrill Lynch, let alone those investment banks that were damaged along with us. I have already called Morgan Stanley's Ronald Morgan and Merrill Lynch's Mr. Douglas Pullman, they all denied the long-term behavior that day, and they are also looking for the source of the mysterious funds that day.

Hearing what Ke Sai said, even Paulson said nothing else. The two people mentioned by Kosai are well-known figures. One is a core member of the Morgan family, and the other is a core member of the California consortium. With their identities and status, they disdain to spend hundreds of millions of dollars lied for loss.

Who else could it be? Could it be the old European families? Or the Mitsui or Mitsubishi in Japan? Paulson muttered to himself.

Ke Sai said: Henry, judging from the current clues, the old European families are the most likely. The Japanese don't have the courage to do more on that day. However, let's not forget that there is another one in our Federation. Peers who are capable of doing that.”

Hearing what Ke Sai said, Paulson, Collins and several others all looked at Ke Sai.

The few people present are all core personnel of Goldman Sachs, but apart from Ke Sai, even Henry Paulson, who is ranked second, only stepped into the top management of Goldman Sachs after the 1990s. situation, they don't know much about it. Therefore, after hearing what Ke Sai said, they all wanted to know who the colleague Ke Sai was talking about.

The United States is large, but it is also small. There are not many banks like this that can mobilize three billion US dollars in cash anytime and anywhere to operate across continents, but after denying some of their peers who have the ability to do this, a few of them are I really can't think of another colleague who can do this.

Although it is easy for super banks like Citigroup, ****, Chase Manhattan, and New York Mellon to do this, these banks will not easily participate in speculation such as the financial crisis, except for these Who else can do this besides super banks?

Ke Sai took a deep breath, as if he was worried about something, but in the end he sighed and said: I don't know if you still remember that during the stock market crash ten years ago, an investment fund suddenly shined. All of America.

When Ke Sai said this, the faces of several people changed, and Paulson asked: But, didn't that fund disappear later? People from the outside world occasionally mentioned that fund, but they all said that the fund had already disappeared. It closed down.

Closed? Ke Sai snorted disdainfully, How could it be closed? That fund still exists, but it is very low-key. At least as far as I know, the twenty-seven funds held by this fund back then The shares of the company, oh, there were twenty-five companies left, they still held them, but they held them under a different name. And even in our Goldman Sachs, there are at least seven or more partners, I am afraid It is inextricably linked with this fund, and it is not even ruled out that it is the agent of that fund!

Hearing these words, everyone gasped, and their faces changed several times in a very short period of time, but in the end no one dared to speak anymore.

In the end, Paulson couldn't help but said, Kosai, if it's really that fund, what should we do? Do we want to continue the investigation?

Ke Sai glared at Paulson, tapped his fingers on the table for a long time before slowly saying: First of all, we have no definite evidence that it was done by that fund. Secondly, and finally The important point is that even if we have definite evidence to prove that the fund did it, then we should not continue to investigate, let alone publish the evidence! Because doing so will kill us. If I have not miscalculated , in front of that fund, our Goldman Sachs is as fragile as a little BABY”

Everyone gasped again.