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On March 26, 2020, the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” will publish an opinion piece entitled “A virus called short selling”. In view of the crisis in the crown, he proposes a ban on short sales for “systemically important industries”, including payment service providers. The author, as it appears below the text, is “President of Spitzberg Partners and was Federal Minister of Economy and Defense”.
What’s Not There: At this time, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg also worked for the payment service provider Wirecard, which collapsed three months later in the biggest financial scandal in postwar history. Wirecard was the target of speculators at an early stage, but later benefited from a short sale ban on its shares imposed by financial supervisory authority BaFin. Was the “FAZ” comment a job commissioned by former Wirecard boss Markus Braun, whom Guttenberg said he met four times?
It is one of many leads that the Investigative Committee on the Wirecard scandal follows on Thursday and Friday nights. This time it’s about Wirecard’s contacts in German politics and people like Guttenberg who threaded them. Probably its greatest success was Wirecard’s acquisition of the Chinese company AllScore. Chancellor Angela Merkel personally campaigned for the business on a trip to China, after speaking to Guttenberg about it at a meeting shortly before.
As a lobbyist, Guttenberg appears to have been quite successful. But the former minister does not like this praise. “I don’t see myself as a lobbyist,” says Guttenberg, 99 percent of the relevant inquiries were rejected by Spitzberg. He wrote the comment for “FAZ” on his own initiative. The visit to Merkel was also a “meeting without an agenda”, in which the chancellor raised the issue of China on her own. Guttenberg said he had always had an extremely trusting relationship with Merkel. “I would never risk this trust for a client!”
But that’s exactly what happened. Guttenberg was hitched to the car by con artists, and with it, apparently, the federal government. How could that happen?
Guttenberg essentially gives two answers. On the one hand, like many others, he trusted the officials who approved the Wirecard numbers for years. “After all, I am responsible for a consulting company and not for BaFin or an auditing company.”
The second answer is more subtle: Guttenberg talks to individual committee members about his past: SPD MP Cansel Kiziltepe used to be at Volkswagen, Green MP Danyal Bayaz at BCG management consultancy, FDP chair Florian Toncar, sat on the board of directors of the state bank KfW. Guttenberg probably wants to point out that close contacts between politics and business are normal in this country.
Flanking in the party dictatorship
The Ministry of Finance argues similarly. In an exporting nation like Germany, the government now has to help companies gain access to foreign markets. Even more so in a centralized party dictatorship like China, where little happens without political support. “We are a relatively open economy,” says Wolfgang Schmidt, secretary of state and right-hand man on the Olaf Scholz committee. “But they don’t have the same access in China.” The support, as in the case of Wirecard, is “one of the usual measures to promote foreign trade.”
Wirecard still enjoyed this support at a time when there were critical reports and warnings about the business model. But even that is not an exclusion criterion, argues Schmidt. If all those investigated had been resolved before traveling abroad with the DAX companies, “they could have emptied a third of the plane.”
From the point of view of damaged Wirecard investors, the fact that others also have dirt on their hands should not be a satisfactory explanation. Especially since, in hindsight, even lobbyist Guttenberg reported warning signs. His first meeting with Braun was an “astonishingly remote conversation,” during which the Wirecard boss successfully offered him the Du. He was also surprised when Spitzberg Partners advised Wirecard on blockchain technology. It was believed that a high-tech company knew the subject. But “those who hired us had no idea.”
The German embassy in Beijing also had no idea of Wirecard’s machinations for a long time. There, a financial dialogue was organized between Germany and China, during which an agreement was reached on the opening of markets that was important to Wirecard. The financial attaché of the embassy kept in close contact with the company and received its representatives at his home. This is not uncommon, explains the officer who was also summoned to the MPs. Embassy staff are expected to host such receptions.
Plane recommendation
And what expressly promised Wirecard more support from Schmidt? Also standard, says the diplomat, all the other financial companies involved received the same offer. Later, however, as before, he had to admit to the head of audit supervision Apas that he had bought shares in Wirecard. June 19, 2020, the day CEO Markus Braun resigned. Why this purchase, which turned out to be a bad investment within hours? He believed the share price would recover and “maybe he just hoped this company would be successful,” says the man. After all, Wirecard had a unique selling point in its industry. “We only had this company.”
However, Secretary of State Schmidt claims that “Wirecard was not a particular favorite of the federal government.” In June 2019, however, he wrote an email to his Chinese counterpart on a flight to Osaka that many company heads should be happy about. Concerned about diplomatic relations, the government had the document classified as secret, the content is known to SPIEGEL.
Schmidt wrote to his colleague, among other things, that Wirecard and AllScore’s efforts would “develop and enhance the overall health of the Chinese payments industry and provide better services to Chinese businesses and consumers, as well as customers around the world. “. Wirecard’s entry into the market could even “take bilateral financial relations to a new level,” Schmidt continued. He concluded with the wish that his colleague “can continue to support Wirecard AG in its plans to enter the Chinese market.”
The email was probably also very positive because it was based largely on a template from Ulf Gartzke, Guttenberg’s partner at Spitzberg Partners, with whom Schmidt has two terms. Such acquisitions happen earlier, explains the Secretary of State to the deputies. Nor do you see any problem in this case because you have “changed essential points that make up the tone of voice.”
The Green Bayaz president, on the other hand, finds “at least unhappy” when Schmidt uses “a template from his close friend at Spitzberg Partners as the basis for the petitioner email to his Chinese colleague.” “The secretary of state played the role of postman for Guttenberg,” criticized the left-wing president, Fabio De Masi. Obviously, it wasn’t just any company; After all, the Aschheim-based company had long been Dax’s first digital hope. “Wirecard was the diplomatic jackpot,” De Masi believes.
In any case, one thing could promote the closeness between politics and business that can be seen in the Skadal Wirecard: it demands that the rules for lobbyists be tightened. He was in favor, said Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who doesn’t want to be a lobbyist anyway, when questioned.
Collaboration: Gerald Traufetter
