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Greenberg - the shorts' bizarro-world is completely unraveling, this is great to see.
Marty - Greenberg's been tweeting about CCME, not sure if he commented on CNBC. I think it's significant that Greenberg would publicly question MW's piece, perhaps the Greenberg cabal feels the need to distance themselves from MW's bogus attack.
Here's his comments from http://twitter.com/search?q=#herbgreenberg:
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That $CCME tape from Muddy Waters is odd. It was based on an "incoming" phone call. Almost as if they were set up. http://bit.ly/eglK8C
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@herbgreenberg Dear Herb, I was wondering if MW could get in trouble if those tapes are false, what if they THOUGHT it was real.
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@BreakatLove they'd lose all credibility, but who knows? maybe it's true. maybe it's not.
Yeah, funny how the woman is so afraid she will be discovered, and the guy keeps reassuring her that no one will find her out. Then they post the phone call on youtube. I guess no honor among thieves.
According to WCTBills, Muddy Waters has the wrong bus company - Jiaoyun Bashi instead of Shanghai Bashi.
Global Hunter confirmed Shanghai Ba-Shi:
Confirmed number of buses. We spoke to 17 bus operators which operate up to 14,191, or 52% of the total number of buses the company reported. We believe CCME currently has 65-68 bus operators. We visited Shanghai Ba-shi Public Transportation (Group) Co., which confirmed they have 1,892 buses engaged with CCME. We also verified other bus operators that some internet bloggers claimed did not engage as many buses with CCME as the company reported. The numbers these bus operators reported to us matched the contracts we reviewed at CCME. These bus operators confirmed their contracts were 5-8 years in length and cited the large and established network (no competitors with similar scale), good credibility (make payments on time), and quality services (repair equipment on time and change programs twice a month) as reasons for the engagements.
Herb Greenberg tweet:
This just in: 33 stocks (11 on the NYSE, 13 Amex, 9 Nasdaq) saved by new shorting rules, including $YOKU $RST $VVUS $SODA $CCME
Mar. 1 at 5:44 PM
The morning drop did abruptly stop at 10% yesterday. If the rule was triggered yesterday, I believe that effects today's shorting rules as well.
Andrew - this is great news. Looking forward to a professional and highly effective stream of communications from the company soon, I'm sure they have hired a new firm that is specifically geared to handle this type of public relations crisis.
"Unless somebody points it out, they will not invetigate".
Are you kidding? The shorts directly challenged Deloitte to investigate for fraud, you must have missed Deloittewatch.com. Deloitte will not sign the 10K without proving to themselves that there is no fraud.
Paul Gillis:
"Deloitte should be currently engaged in the audit of the calendar year 2010 numbers for CCME which should be reported in the near future. After the cajoling by Deloittewatch.com, I think we can expect that there will be few stones unturned in this audit. I am confident that Deloitte will not sign unless they are comfortable with all of the issues raised by investors. "
http://www.chinaaccountingblog.com/schooling-the-auditors.html
Can anyone summarize what the allegations were against AUTC and how they responded with such effectiveness? I see CCME as having everything it needs to make a complete recovery - unlike some others their business is booming without caveats and they will continue to report earnings growth for the foreseeable future.
Great information Marty, thanks for digging that up.
As has been pointed out, CCME is downstream from the manufacturers for something like 70% of their ad slots. It amazes me how weak these short attacks are, they just keep stating the same falsehoods over and over.
reader10q - waiting on that retraction, here is video evidence of L'Oreal on a CCME monitor:
http://ccme-info.xanga.com/742157355/february-25th-2011--loreal-on-ccme/
"Ends annoucement with new signoff.....Who's Your Daddy Now?"
Lol, very nice - and they should have that statement notarized by Deloitte.
Looking forward to the headlines -
"China MediaExpress Reports Record Earnings"
"CCME Defies Critics, Releases Much Awaited Earnings"
"China MediaExpress Issues Guidance, Discusses Growth Plans"
"The China Stock That Was Too Good To Be True? It's True!"
It's down, the google cached version is still available:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:gMo_nRG8JhcJ:www.deloittewatch.com/+deloittewatch.com&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com
Kelvin, how much research have you done on the company?
You're calling people naive for their confidence after they have collectively done over a year of deep due diligence and analysis. Personally I see right through all of the short allegations, there is nothing there. Maybe your nervousness is due to your own naivety.
She's just trying to drive traffic to her blog, IMO. Another perma-bear who offers no possible way to verify any company's business. According to her and Seasaw, all companies are frauds unless they say they aren't.
"I have spoken to some Big Four partners this week who are saying they plan to test large balances by actually sending someone to the bank to look at the balance on the computer screen. "
Thought this was a very interesting statement by Paul Gillis. He doesn't identify these Big 4 partners as Deloitte, nor does he identify the audit as being CCME's, but it wouldn't be surprising if that's who he's talking about.
He also discusses Deloittewatch.com: "After the cajoling by Deloittewatch.com, I think we can expect that there will be few stones unturned in this audit. I am confident that Deloitte will not sign unless they are comfortable with all of the issues raised by investors." By "investors" he means "criminals" - JMHO.
To the extent the shorts gained some advantage by attacking during the audit, I think they lose something after the audit is completed. This will be one heckuva thorough audit, and while the shorts will still try to attack the results even Rick Pearson will have to stand up for Deloitte and declare CCME fraud-free after the 10K is released.
Actually, that would be asking too much of Rick, it's sooo hard to stand without a spine...
Sounds like he's been talking to Carson Block. Such a weakling, apparently he just writes what he's told to write.
Here we have a public company that adheres to its legal responsibilities and its responsibilities to shareholders, vs. Carson Block who openly manipulates the stock with blatant lies. And Rick Pearson reports on it like its just a game, 'who knows who is right?', blah blah etc.
A spineless tool, IMO.
Agreed Timothy, Pearson seems afraid to state the truth in his articles. I guess they beat him up last time, now he's intimidated and playing it safe.
I believe that was an interview with the CEO (?), not a PR. Sorry, don't have a link but I remember reading about the plans for radio.
Anyone know how/when CCME margin requirements will return to normal? I assume brokers make the call, is it driven by volatility in the stock, or the allegations against the company, or...?
I believe 100% that Muddy Waters knows the company is legitimate, so they are playing it safe and taking their gains, IMO.
Their whole technique is one of omission. If they rode the buses looking for dirt, they saw everything that wctBills documented, they just didn't report on it. No doubt they purchased Apple merchandise from Switow.com, they would have loved to publish that the website is a fraud - so there's an iPad in their office right now but they left that out of the report. If they actually made phone calls, then they used the wrong name for CCME or deliberately talked to the wrong people. Along the way they surely heard positive comments, but as their disclosure states, the information they present is not necessarily 'complete'.
The guy's a lawyer, he probably knows that he can wiggle out of his allegations about CCME but can't wiggle out of simple statements about his own position...? Who knows.
It's a joke because MW has already been proven liars with their hit piece. Would love to hear the conversation they claim to be having with the SEC -
"Yeah well, Ok, we lied about the Apple distributor, and yeah, we lied about those bus companies, and, well, yeah, ok, we mistranslated those web pages... but here, look at our transcripts of these phone calls we really did have with someone in some other companies, these are super real and that Ping woman is just making stuff up."
I mean, they seriously claim to be contacting the SEC after having been proven wrong on so many fronts? More likely the SEC is contacting them.
MW is trying hard to delay earnings, IMO. They are likely bombarding Deloitte with half-baked materials, on top of the deloittewatch.com challenge, with the intent to create so much havoc that things have to slow down. It will be interesting to see how Deloitte handles this, if they finish earnings on time that will be a very strong statement re confidence in CCME.
Muddy Waters covered? Can anyone verify, was their announcement only via email? Can't find it on their website.
Showdown at the OK Corral, everyone's got their story and everyone stands by it, and now the SEC and Deloitte are being called out - amazing. Let's see, who is telling the truth...? Easy answer, and it's not Muddy Waters.
Appreciate your thoughts.
Lol, get wctBills to video GH headquarters!
Deloittewatch.com now works to longs advantage, when Deloitte signs off after being challenged they will be affirming that they considered everything in that open letter, IMO.
Switow magazine is in food stores? What!? I thought it was limited to buses.
What a morning to sleep in! Congrats to all and thanks for the tremendous response to the attack - what an amazing group of shareholders.
Excellent article Michael!
According to Sang's article, CTR had about 2000 Shanghai buses in its 2008 report, so that matches Fernando's contact information. I think Sang is trying to have it both ways, he says the company repressed that page in it's version of the CTR report, yet that page contains the higher number. I suspect this all has to do with counting subsidiaries of bus companies, independent contractors, etc.
Unknown, could have been just a rumor, or someone working hard to take out stops, or...?
"unworried", "not worried" - I don't know the difference and either way, excellent to hear - thanks for sharing that info, hundredwaters.
"a little angry, but confident and unworried'... I like the sound of that.
forzagrifo - excellent find on Shanghai Apollo! Another charge debunked.
It also makes sense given the sweetheart deal they got from the Ministry of Transportation, the free content, etc. Only one company got to be the TTAVC partner, there's got to be some politics there.
Glad to hear you were polite, asking him where he got the money for his stock purchase.