Protocol of Failure: The Editor-in-Chief’s Weekly Review

Good morning dear readers,

The job of journalists is to provide orientation, to describe the world, to create publicity, to control political and economic power and to uncover the unknown. That is how we see ourselves, as I wrote in the editorial of our Friday edition. We have discussed this responsibility particularly intensively over the past few days. Because if you read these lines, the Handelsblatt published the classified investigation report of the special auditor in the Wirecard case. The story made waves last night.

In context: For four weeks, a team led by special auditor Martin Wambach, the director of the Institute of Auditors, dealt with the work of EY. On April 16, 2021, Wambach presented his results to the Wirecard investigation committee. On the same day, the secret service of the Bundestag classified the report as secret.

Nobody has had access to it since then. I think that is a mistake, which is why we have not just dedicated a cover story to this explosive document. We have also published the complete report on the Internet.

Because the public interest is simply too great. The Wirecard case is the biggest economic scandal our country has ever experienced. Investors lost 24 billion euros. Creditors are waiting for 12.4 billion euros. And Germany has embarrassed itself with the story all over the world because both the media and the supervisors reacted too late to the long-known warnings. Instead, bank analysts cheered the share up to almost 200 euros.

After reading the Wambach Report, there is no longer any doubt: Aside from those responsible at Wirecard, the EY auditors have the most to explain in this affair.

It was right that the investigative committee of the German Bundestag entrusted a special auditor with the analysis of the work of EY. It is wrong to withhold this work from the public.

The German taxpayers paid for the Wambach report. Many of them were harmed by the Wirecard affair. There is not only an overwhelming public interest in this report in Germany. If the public doesn’t know what went wrong, no one will learn from the case.

What else has been on our minds this week:

1. Two curves reach new record levels almost every day: the development of the Dax and the number of corona incidences. While investors are speculating on growth, hospital doctors are looking at the rising number of infections with increasing concern. “We are well on the way to the next lockdown – and are discussing whether it is reasonable for employees to disclose their vaccination status,” argues my colleague Christian Rickens. “That’s absurd.” What moves me even more: While the carnivalists in Cologne on November 11th. celebrated close together, St. Martin’s parades are restricted by elementary schools. You can’t explain that to anyone anymore.

2. Lufthansa repaid the state aid in full yesterday. This means that the airline group will become independent again sooner than many had expected. How things will go on with the company, how many business customers will travel in the future, how realistic sustainable flying is and how it wants to reduce the still high debt, Handelsblatt aviation reporter Jens Koenen and I discussed with Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr in Frankfurt . It was a lively debate – with one clear insight: climate policy could be more dangerous for his company than the corona crisis. For the moment, the company is more crisis-proof than it has been in a long time: “We have three times as much liquidity as before the crisis.”

3. In the middle of the Handelsblatt auto summit this week, the news broke that at the climate summit in Glasgow, 100 countries, cities and companies have decided to phase out combustion engines by 2035 if possible. Mercedes is there – BMW and VW are not. On the same day, I was able to discuss the topic with VW boss Herbert Diess, Daimler CEO Ola Källenius and BMW boss Oliver Zipse at the car summit. All three are committed to e-mobility. But they don’t want to let go of the combustion engine anytime soon. You can listen to the three interviews this week in my Handelsblatt Disrupt podcast.

4th My conversation with VW boss Herbert Diess at the auto summit had a particularly high audience rating. Only a few days earlier it became known that the dispute between Diess and the works council had once again escalated. In our conversation, the VW boss said: “We have to push the company forward, change it. Structures have to be broken up and new forms of cooperation found. The need for change is not always immediately apparent to everyone. Leaving the company alone would be very dangerous for all employees. “

One can argue about the brutal approach of the VW boss. What Diess says here about the transformation of his group is just as correct. He also made headlines with the answer to my question whether he would still be VW boss next year: “Yes,” he said, “definitely.”

5. Microsoft founder Bill Gates, the new Linde boss Sanjiv Lamba or economist Hans-Werner Sinn – they all criticize the German nuclear phase-out in view of the huge challenges in climate protection. The operators of the remaining six nuclear reactors have little understanding for this. For them the subject is settled, as Kathrin Witsch and Jürgen Flauger report. “To start a debate in Germany shortly before shutdown about whether nuclear power plants make an important contribution to climate protection is disconcerting,” says Eon boss Leonhard Birnbaum to the Handelsblatt: “It comes much too late and is no longer useful.”

6th Many German companies are concerned about the topic, but only a few want to speak openly about it: the consequences of the technology competition between the USA and China for German companies. A team of reporters and foreign correspondents from the Handelsblatt analyzed in a large report how they deal with it and what strategies they use to react to the increasing risk. In the worst case, as is shown by the secret strategic considerations of corporations, they have to split up.

7th It is the crash of a German stock market star: The software company Teamviewer has long been considered the winner of the corona crisis. After the IPO in 2019, CEO Oliver Steil promised shareholders rapid growth and announced bold plans. He even wanted to compete with the Zoom video service. But then the downward slide began. How could this happen? Larissa Holzki and Christof Kerkmann analyze the management errors in a report that is well worth reading.

8th. How far will real estate prices rise? That is the big debate in the housing market. My colleague Carsten Herz has been dealing with the question for months. In doing so, he increasingly comes across experts who expect the real estate boom to slowly come to an end. In his large report you can read which cities will continue to be in demand – and where prices could even fall.

9. Francis Fukuyama initially hesitated when my colleague Jens Münchrath asked him if he would give a big interview. For the Stanford political scientist, the corona crisis represents such a major turning point that it seemed too early to draw any major conclusions. Finally he agreed to it. The result is a highly exciting analysis of our time: “This pandemic will fundamentally change the way we view things and the way we think about them,” he said. And: It is not the autocratic systems like China that would emerge stronger from this crisis, but the democracies.

With this optimistic outlook, I am now sending you off into the weekend.

Greetings,
you

Sebastian Matthes
Editor-in-chief Handelsblatt

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