In a shocking new development, China
Petroleum and Chemical Corp (or Sinopec; NYSE:SNP) admitted that it
had known about the Daimler
Bribes since 2004 when its own employees took bribes from the corrupt
German company.
Apparently, Daimler has paid TENS of
MILLIONS of DOLLARS in bribes over the past ten years in 22 countries. I'm shocked I tell you. Shocked!
And in clean, pure, honest China to boot… shame on Daimler.
To change the subject completely, we should
congratulate Chinese National Petroleum Corp for its successful foray into
Kazakhstan oil assets.
The company beat out all other potential
buyers in 2003 to secure, for $150 million, a 25% stake in Aktobe
MunaiGas. And unlike Daimler, these
honest businessmen didn't pay bribes. It
also reflects good investing, given that Aktobe made $244 million profit that
year!
Oh, and congratulations on the president's
son-in-law and former public servant, Timur
Kulibayev, for making $165 million on
the deal from his initial $49 investment.
One could argue that this is actually a Chinese government organization
paying a $165 million bribe on a single deal, as opposed to Daimler's tens of
millions over more than ten years. But
that would be splitting hairs, not to mention pissing off a government sitting
on $2.4
trillion in foreign currency reserves!
This
Daily Bear is not for distribution in China.
Cheers,
Peter.
