There are some real lessons here about journalism, efficient markets, govt oversight, and truth prevailing in the very long run.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/17/deutsche-ba...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport
- The accusations of FT journalist McCrum as well as the initial "bombshells" of shady "researchers" (that no one ever heard of before or thereafter) weren't really red-flags but rather came across as construed (the contents of those bombshells are not necessarily tied to the missing billions)
- some of the outspoken short sellers have a shady history as well
- What else should the BaFin as well as prosecutors do if there are witnesses that claim to know about FT, or someone connected, offering them future dates of incriminating articles to be released? Banning short-selling for a limited amount of time was the reasonable thing to do.
- Simultaneously the prosecutors started investigating against WDI and the BaFin opened investigations weeks/months ago against WDI CEO and its leadership for cases of market manipulation (due to their communication in recent months), so they aren't exactly biased
OTOH:
- the aforementioned paints BaFin at least as slow to respond (I've had contacted them about other ponzi's in the past and it often took years (5+) until arrests were made).
What is clear:
- there is a high degree of criminal activity involved
- it can't be a single person pulling this off
- and at least one of them must be in the upper-echelons of WDI
Whether or not Braun is that one will make all the difference for shareholders.
How the hell do you as a CEO manage to not see missing billions and/or not inform shareholders, clients and employees about that until the very-last day legally possible?!
It was repeatedly bemoaned that in the case of WDI, a blue chip prime standard stock, worth more than any German bank (as of yesterday morning) was managed like a Mittelstand family business.
It is really weird that WDI's management board was almost completely staffed with former fellow students (or people who are affilliated with people he knew) from Austria, people who often outside of WDI had no job experience.
In the best case this is just due to unicorn-growth. In the worst case, they are all in this together. Probably, it is something in between, that they we're unfit for the big game and one/some of them took advantage of it.
The "getting sued over" part didn't happen. Public prosecutors investigated – and didn't filed suit. At least for now (I doubt they will).
This misrepresentation of such a small but important distinction (sueing vs. investigating) is one that was also repeatedly seen in short-sellers tweets in the anglo-sphere.
- "[short seller] Do you speak english?"
* "[BaFin] Sure of course.
- "[short seller] I have proof of Wirecard's fraud..."
* "[BaFin - interrupting] Wirecard? Oh sorry no we don't speak english. [hang up]"
And that right there is indeed BaFin's fault. They are at best negligent and at worst a malicious entity, that has scammed many investors out of a lot of money.
I mean, I ultimately agree BaFin is shady as hell here, but I can at least imagine a scenario where someone thought "wait I thought we were going to talk about something routine my language skills are not good enough for something this sensitive".
On the international whistleblower hotline of the financial regulatory agency? At least they could have connected them with somebody, or tell them to send an email somewhere, but hanging up doesn't sound shady to me, it just sounds lazy :P
Yes, public servants should be interested in doing their job properly.
In Germany at least, they are un-fireable, so it isn't unusual for many of them to just being counting the days until retirement. Some "harder" task arrives? Sorry can't do that - what are you going to do about it? I can't be fired.
However, considering it's a department that deals with complicated legal issues, my experience living in Germany tells me there's a decent chance the person answering the phone knows formal English better than the person that called.
If they didn't listen they didn't want to listen.
"EARL: I phoned the whistleblower line there, and I said, do you speak English? Yes. Then as soon as I mentioned Wirecard, they then said, oh, actually, I don't speak very good English. Could you call back? Or then another time, the phone just went dead."
Which kind of confirms trowawaygh's spitballing.
Anyways, this specific short seller's account sounds more like its going to be part of a movie.
And the whistleblower and the journalists.
It seems extremely organised and well-protected for alleged fraud.
Usually fraud relies on personal/corporate reputation. But when you have both lawyers and hackers being employed to take down critics and investigators, it's reasonable to ask questions about regulator collusion and political influence.
The problem was that German politicians were extremely desperate for at least one large-scale German "new tech business" success story, and Wirecard seemed to be the only candidate that on the face of it appeared to fit the bill. That blinded them to the obvious and made them see an anglo-saxon conspiracy to keep German tech down behind every reasonable story about Wirecard.
In my opinion, it shows the dangers when national protectionism and picking winners intrudes in the supposedly neutral business of regulating critical businesses.
Short sellers and investigative reporters are natural contrarians. There just aren't many people willing to invest years into proving that everybody else is wrong, especially when the victory -- if you get one at all -- will be pyrrhic.
When you make claims that are outside the overton window of the listener they can't hear what you're saying because to them you sound unhinged. I think that's what happened here.
I don't think that term applies to short sellers or investigative reporters. When they win, they profit. John Carreyrou's career and reputation have surely seen a boost from his work on Theranos, no?
It's interesting thing to realize, short sellers might be good control for the market.
> In summary, the $WDI fraud has all the features of today’s highly evolved art of corporate financial fraud. Its scale, duration, and brazenness (faked cash!) highlight just how free a hand financial fraudsters enjoy to ply their trade.
> It also exposes just how deep the rot is in the realms of regulation, accounting, securities exchanges, and (with important exceptions) almost all of the financial and business media.
> BaFin – their reputation as a financial regulator lies in tatters. The entire leadership of the organization should resign immediately. Merkel should launch a sweeping investigation.
> Taken as a whole, the ‘circling of the wagons’ by the German regulatory, business and media establishment around a long running and obvious fraud casts a large shadow on the integrity of the German economy.
> A fraud this big and blatant can only persist for this long with the assistance, either active or passive, from a wide range of enablers. They all need to be named, shamed and suffer the consequences of their complicity for the good of the financial markets.
We have a bunch of oversight organs that don’t do much overseeing and opt for overlooking instead :/