TheFThad suffered the same fate as newspapers everywhere. Readership had declined drastically over the past ten years. Bankruptcy was knocking at the door. To stay alive, management was making a push into the digital arena, publishing an online lifestyle magazine, producing short films, and posting stories on social media outlets the world over. Anything to generate revenue.
London’s style of investigative reporting was perilously out of date. She took too much time to produce a story, filled in too many rows on her expense reports. Often months passed without a byline. Her publisher had grown tired of paying her while he waited.
She’d had offers to work in television, but that was even worse. Quicker turnarounds, less fact-checking, and one producer’s advice to keep the top three buttons of her shirt undone and get a spray tan. And, oh, she might want to consider a push-up bra…
Last week her publisher had drawn a line in the sand. A story—and a good one, at that—or she was out. One more Fleet Street casualty. It was with a fervor born of survival that she attacked the story of R’s anonymous leak.
London drank her coffee, then returned to her desk. Her cat, Freddy—for Frédéric Chopin—rubbed himself against her leg, and she placed him on her lap, stroking his back as she reread the printouts. It was like a game. R had given her a few clues to get started, not many, but with her expertise, enough to deduce who he was talking about. She just had to dig.
She logged on to theFT’s proprietary database and searched for a list of Asian sovereign wealth funds. There were twelve funds with assets over five billion dollars, the biggest owned by Japan, with a value over one trillion dollars. She ruled out Japan. Too many eyes. Too many cooks in the kitchen. Similarly, she ruled out China. This was the work of a smaller fund, one overseen by a precious few. A monarchy, maybe. Probably not a liberal democracy. Then again…
She decided on Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan (as cunning a people as she’d come across), Brunei, and Vietnam.
Sovereign wealth funds were simply investment funds where the money in play came from the populace—either via government surpluses, taxes, or monies underwritten for just this purpose. Most sovereign wealth funds, or SWFs, were required to file quarterly reports that included a comprehensive list of their investments. But not all. Many got away with listing investments by sector—energy, manufacturing, gaming—and providing a few financial highlights, primarily the announcement of important new investments and/or the successful liquidation of profitable positions. Everybody liked a winner.
R had provided London with two paths to follow. Find a fund that had invested seven hundred million dollars in a Saudi Arabian oil venture (on or around the date listed on the transfer) and/or identify those funds managed by that country’s minister of finance.
She shooed Freddy off her lap, then double-checked the dates listed on the bank transfers. Next, she downloaded PDFs of the quarterly reports issued by each of the seven countries’ sovereign wealth funds for that time period. Reporting was detective work, a slog through facts and figures, your magnifying glass ever at the ready.
Two hours later, the first cull. Out went Thailand and Vietnam. Neither had reported any investments in Saudi Arabia. Which left Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Taiwan. All five listed investments in Saudi Arabian entities for the dates mentioned on the transfers.
More digging. More quarterly reports, these from the periods immediately preceding the transfer date. No joy. All five countries had made investments in Saudi Arabia going back years. None gave specifics about amounts invested.
London told the countries what she thought of them in no uncertain terms and stood from her desk, stretching her arms over her head. She didn’t know if she loved this part of her work or hated it. A tour of the apartment. Five minutes straightening up the bathroom. Another five in front of the television, channel surfing.
She needed reinforcements. Coffee wasn’t enough. Time for her secret weapon. From the back of the fridge, an ice-cold Snickers bar. This was war.
Back at her desk, she picked up her phone and scrolled through her contacts, stopping at the letterC.Chow, Benson. Singapore National Bank.An irritated voice answered. “Yeah?”
A small favor, London told him. Could he possibly ask around and see if any Asian SWFs had dropped nearly a billion on an investment in Saudi Arabia a few years back, maybe seven hundred million was a more accurate figure. No, she didn’t know which country, and, no, it was none of his business why she was asking.
Chow hemmed and hawed. He ran the bank’s trading desk, a big job, but he had the résumé for it. A Singaporean success story—MIT, Wharton, partner on Wall Street by thirty-two, before returning to work for his country. She’d interviewed him a half-dozen times for one story or another and turned him down for a date just as many.
“Caught me at a tough time,” he said. “I’m really jammed.”
And so, a carrot: “Find out,” said London, “and I’ll let you take me to dinner at the Gordon.” The Gordon Grill, the fancy eatery at the Goodwood Park Hotel.
“Now that I think about it, it rings a bell,” said Benson Chow. “Give me till tomorrow?”
“Close of trading today.”
A sharp knock at the door came as she ended the call. London checked her watch as she rushed to the door. She’d forgotten what day it was. “I was just on the phone. Come in. Come in.”
Astrid Sörensson Li swept into the apartment, slowing to bestow two brittle kisses on London’s cheeks. She was sixty-six, an inch taller than her daughter, her thick hair more silver than blond, pulled off her forehead and gathered into a severe ponytail. She was a vigorous woman, with broad shoulders and a determined step. God forbid those who blocked her path. Dressed in a knee-length skirt and a sleeveless blouse, an essentials bag draped over one shoulder, she looked little different from the buxom, no-nonsense, Swedish schoolteacher who had swept London’s father off his feet forty years before.
“I had hoped you would be practicing,” said Astrid Li as she entered the kitchen, depositing the bag on the counter.
“It’s almost noon, Mama. I’m working.”
“I haven’t seen your name in the paper for quite some time. I’d thought that maybe you’d lost your job. Then who would pay for this?”
“No, Mama, I haven’t lost my job,” said London. “In fact, I think I’ve found my next story.”
Astrid Li nodded, adding nothing more to the subject as she unpacked their lunch. “Are you still working on the Fauré nocturne? It was your father’s favorite.”
“I’ve put it aside for now.”
No comment. London’s mother had never given up hope that she’d one day find the grit to overcome her injury and resume her career. “Grit.” Her word. In the Li family’s mixed household, it was her mother who had exhibited the Asian insistence on excellence. If there was a Swedish term for “tiger mom,” it could be applied to her mother.
