What's wrong with me being a rich man?

Chapter 478 stain
For shorting European automakers, Guo Shanfeng received the most enthusiastic praise of his career.

From Wall Street to Japanese media and domestic reports, some even combined the praise from Chanos, Ackman, and others to give Guo Shanfeng the title of "King of Short Sellers".

Its destructive power is strong, its actions are precise, its peers are convinced of its power, the regulators have to show their strength, and it still maintains its mystery.

The king of short sellers did not respond to the surging media frenzy, remaining silent and not revealing his name behind the scenes.

Yu Xing naturally noticed this and even sent Liu Wanying a list of various titles with great interest. Besides the King of Short Sellers, there were also titles like Doomsday Short Seller, Most Toxic Short Seller, Disaster Short Seller, and so on.

Liu Wanying offered a simple assessment: "It sounds awful. Only 'King of Short Sellers' sounds somewhat honest and respectable, but it's still useless."

It's not very useful, because Guo Shanfeng can't reveal his identity. He's already facing regulatory tracking in Europe, and if his identity is confirmed, it could lead to a series of lawsuits.

However, this reputation also has its practical significance.

Short sellers are always eager to create hype. One is the number one hedge fund manager on Wall Street, another is the wolf king of the capital market. For example, Ackman successfully turned his reputation into fame by short selling, and successfully grew his hedge fund to a scale of tens of billions of dollars.

Given Guo Shanfeng's track record and reputation, the amount of capital he can access can increase rapidly once a hedge fund is established.

This is also one of the reasons why the outside world is puzzled by its anonymity.

There are many speculations about this mystery, but many people think that the direction Ackerman talked about on the show is more likely. Revealing his identity over the mountain peak may affect the public situation of the mastermind behind the scenes.

Despite the confusion, the mountain peak remains silent on external opinions, and it seems likely that it will continue in this way.

The emissions scandal in Europe continues to unfold, and while no medals have been awarded to the mountain, there is certainly more and more activity.

Following their arrest of Martin, who shorted his own company, the European joint investigation team uncovered through fund flows that traders from five banks, including Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland, had coordinated to short multiple listed companies in the automotive industry by sharing client order information.

Insider trading, market manipulation, and front-running.

The investigation team did not disclose the specific amount involved, but the bank will inevitably be heavily fined this time. This is also seen as a signal that European regulators are taking action against domestic funds. It is said that this is still strongly promoted by the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin).

Among the current European member states, BaFin is the first to tighten its policies. According to Der Spiegel, Germany is currently implementing a presumption of illegality. If a hedge fund establishes a CDS position within five trading days before the release of the short-selling report on Volkswagen by the Hillhouse Capital, the transaction is presumed to be illegal.

Even though... BaFin has no direct evidence to prove the channels through which the information was obtained.

This is undoubtedly an extremely harsh measure, and it has once again sparked controversy.

However, such revelations were quickly overwhelmed by the latest information in the industry. The root cause of the short sellers' attack on the financial market was the emissions fraud of diesel vehicles themselves. Daimler Group's announcement on the first day of June of a recall of some diesel vehicle models brought everyone's attention back to the car companies themselves.

As one of the world's top automakers, both German-made, and both closely associated with Bosch, which is embroiled in allegations of exporting counterfeit technology, Daimler's recall is seen as a subtle acknowledgment.

Daimler did it too...

Strange, it seems I've become numb again.

In fact, many media outlets were already reviewing Bosch Group's parts supply before Daimler recalled the vehicles. It was revealed that Daimler's Mercedes-Benz E-Class diesel vehicles also used Bosch Group's EDC-17ECU.

The move by yet another top automaker has dealt another blow to the European automotive industry, but this time the impact on the market is not significant because the German government launched a bailout policy almost simultaneously. The German central bank and the Ministry of Finance jointly announced the injection of liquidity into the automotive industry, providing 300 billion euros in special low-interest loans to commercial banks such as Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank.

Meanwhile, Germany and France have established an automotive industry bailout fund, which will provide 200 billion euros in emissions subsidies to eligible companies. Specific details have not yet been released, but this is seen as a clear positive development.

In addition, there are widespread rumors in the market that the German and French governments have asked banks and financial institutions not to withdraw existing loans to car manufacturers and suppliers.

The massive €500 billion stimulus package in a single day successfully prevented Daimler from experiencing the same disastrous ten minutes as Volkswagen, with its share price falling by only 5% throughout the day, thus significantly easing market sentiment.

However, the actions of such an automaker raise more suspicions about companies involved in fraud. If Daimler has also done it, who will be the next to step forward? Many media outlets have turned their attention to BMW.

Among the BBA (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi) companies, Audi's Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz's Daimler have all been involved in emissions fraud. Is BMW far behind?

Almost as many media outlets were analyzing the probability of BMW falsifying data, Fiat from Italy held a press conference announcing that, after a preliminary internal investigation, it had determined that some models used ECUs from the Bosch Group, which had technical flaws, and that the company would recall the models and provide free upgrades.

“Technical oversight,” “free upgrade,” and “Bosch Group.”

Compared to the Volkswagen Group, which proactively admitted its guilt and had its CEO resign to take responsibility, Fiat's tone was much more self-righteous.

Chanos, who closely monitors the situation in Europe, vehemently criticized this: "This is a misguided intervention by the German and French governments in the market. It is precisely because of the funding they provide to the automotive industry that these counterfeit car companies can stand so shamelessly in front of the media! Free upgrades are the biggest joke I've heard this year!"

Fiat remained silent about the noise from the outside world, intending only to become an inconspicuous follower after the big boss committed fraud.

With Renault, Volkswagen, Daimler, and Fiat joining Mitsubishi earlier, the automotive industry has been quite turbulent this year.

Finally, the independent emissions test results from a third-party organization arrived belatedly, confirming that the Mercedes-Benz models that were being subtly recalled and the Fiat models that were being upgraded for free did indeed have similar emissions issues that could almost certainly be attributed to Bosch Group technology.

Surprisingly, BMW, one of the German Big Three, did not encounter any problems in the agency tests.

This situation actually brought a sigh of relief to many people, as one of the German car representatives had finally survived.

BBA, BBA, but the one ranked first has to be "Bao"!
The results from third-party testing agencies sprang up like mushrooms after rain, seemingly providing cross-validation for the automotive industry. Just when it seemed that market credibility could begin to recover, Peugeot Citroën's name appeared on the list of abnormal tests.

From France, from France that jointly established the automotive industry bailout fund.

And, it still uses parts from the Bosch Group.

This is no longer surprising.

Meanwhile, many media outlets believe this is a joint action by Germany, France, and even Italy to gradually release signals, thus turning the impact of this emissions incident from a hard landing to a soft landing.

Test results are still being released, and no new car manufacturers have been identified.

It should be said that such an anomaly has almost never occurred; the suspected abnormality of a Nissan model doesn't even seem like a major problem.

On the first day of the second week of June, the EU introduced another round of stimulus policies, demonstrating Europe's commitment to supporting the automotive industry and causing short-selling funds that had been waiting on the sidelines to gradually withdraw.

From early May to early June, from Renault to Citroën, CEOs were arrested, T1 suppliers were blacklisted, insider trading and market manipulation were investigated, and the government also took drastic measures to bail them out. The entire European automotive industry seemed to be going to quiet down and lick its wounds.

On June 10, a bombshell report came from the United States: Daimler Group was exposed by The Washington Post for secretly contacting the U.S. Department of Justice because it was worried that the investigation into the diesel emissions scandal would result in heavy penalties. It took the lead in surrendering and disclosing a conspiracy that originated in 2006.

Starting in 2006, Volkswagen, BMW, Daimler and its subsidiaries Audi and Porsche held small-scale technical meetings and reached an agreement to limit the capacity of urea tanks. They decided to use urea tanks of the same capacity for their diesel models, with the final capacity set at 17 liters, which is 20%-30% less than the optimal solution, reducing the refill interval to about 3000 kilometers.

At the same time, they jointly demanded that suppliers provide compatible SCR modules and prohibited the development of larger capacity solutions, and jointly pressured suppliers like BASF to maintain high prices in the market.

In other words, Daimler is seeking to become a witness before the United States, exposing its secret market monopoly practices with its peers, in hopes of reducing future fines it may face.

Taking the subsidies, betraying teammates, sacrificing fellow Daoists to save oneself.

This news sent shockwaves through the industry for what felt like the umpteenth time, and infuriated the German government.

Chanos promptly followed up, tweeting sarcastically: "This is the laxity of European regulators. Daimler has money and can act with impunity. What's even more interesting is that Daimler will probably get a reduced fine. Go Daimler, well done!"

(End of this chapter)