Sima's scheme

From the moment that insistent rumors reached us that in fact, WBS Romania was still controlled by Sima, that he only sold it formally and that he still owns its shares through proxies, the possibility of a conflict of interest (which is prohibited by law) became obvious, because the CEO of Sibex controlled both the exchange, for which WBS Romania was a market maker, but also the companies affiliated with Sibex - Casa Română de Compensaţii SA (CRC-The Romanian Clearing House) and Depozitarul Sibex SA (the Sibex Depository).

One of the classic tricks through which a market, such as the stock exchange, can be made more attractive, is to artificially increase its liquidity, so it can tempt investors, by making them think that they can quickly enter and exit, because they would have no problem finding a counterparty.

Some of the rumors in the market were suggesting that this was precisely what Sima had done, manipulating the market in Sibiu through WBS Romania (especially on the DEDJIA_RON, EUR/USD_RON, SIBGOLD and SIBGOLD_RON contracts, where, at the request of Cristian Sima, the employees of SSIF WBS România SA repeatedly conducted trades, both with some of their own clients, whose accounts they managed in a discretionary manner - as well as between the clients themselves - cross trades).

Of course, the manipulation also leads to the secondary outcome of an increase in the commissions earned by the stock exchange, but the main result is that Sibex presented itself as having become stronger and more successful under the management of Cristian Sima, meaning that the shares of Sibex justified their attractiveness, enough for WBS Romania to stuff them down the throats of its own customers, at valuations based on their own manipulations, made using their own clients' money.

This kind of rumors reached us in the beginning of the year, and were referring to the successive trades made on January 20th, 2012, between the accounts opened with SSIF WBS Romania (especially on the firms' own account) and Tatika Investments Ltd Cyprus, with DEDJIA_RON contracts, generating over 50% of the total trades on that instrument.

It would appear that similar operations were also made between January 23rd and January 25th, 2012: the buying of DEDJIA_RON contracts, using the account opened by Tatika Investments Ltd with SSIF Delta Valori Mobiliare SA Bucureşti (in the trading session of January 23rd, 2012), followed by a reverse trade concluded between the brokerage in question (which thus squared the positions it owned) and SSIF WBS România SA; on January 24th, 2012, a series of successive trades were placed, by which some of the DEDJIA_RON contracts owned by Tatika Investments Ltd were sold to Florica Elena Năstase (a client of WBS România) and to WBS România itself, with the latter contracts later sold again to the first client on January 25th, 2012, followed by the closing of all the positions opened by WBS România, through trades using Tatika as a counterparty, operations which accounted for 85% of the volume traded by Sibex on that day.

This is the basis on which WBS România convinced its customers that the acquisition of Sibex shares was an investment "which had potential", together with the mind-bending claims by Sima that he was working on bringing a strong foreign stock exchange operator, which would acquire Sibex and that, once that happened, the customers of WBS Romania would see their profit increase ten times.

Beyond the illusions he marketed to his clients, what is certain is that Sima increased his stake in Sibex, thus obtaining the right to represent the clients of WBS România, in the General Shareholder Meetings of Sibex, which he began dominating with a tight enough fist that the members of the management and the employees of Sibex from the Supervisory and Trading Department, as well as those from the Romanian Clearing House, didn't report anything to the CNVM, even though it was impossible that they did not know about all that was happening.

Other sources told us that Sima asked Anca Bunea, the head of WBS România, to periodically conduct trades which would result in specific gains for his close associates Lucian-Emanoil Giuşcă and Dan Gabriel Barbu, which had other clients of WBS România as counterparties, just like, for instance, on February 1st, 2012, he took a loss on Tatika's account, in order to be able to post a gain in the accounts of Daniel Dăianu, Florica Elena Năstase and Vlad Cavarnali.

According to market sources, it would seem that this was a common practice at WBS Romania, imposed by Sima: trades between the firm and its own clients, as well as cross-trades between the customers, which were intended to deliberately cause losses on one side and post gains on the other.

It is even said that the accounts opened by Ioan Felician Vlădău and George Negru with WBS Romania, were used without their agreement, to cover the lack of money in the margin account of WBS Romania, a practice which wasn't that infrequent and which was not confined to those accounts alone, where the brokerage firm would use its customer's money for time frames ranging from a few hours to 2-3 days.

From what I've heard, Mirela Narcisa Grigoroiu (shareholder and customer of WBS România) unsuccessfully asked in February 2012, to close out her accounts, which had about 100,000 Euros in them, a request which was apparently honored, however, only towards the end of March 2012. She was told that the amount was used for occasionally supplementing the margin account of Ioan Alexandru Botezan, because it was what Sima had decided.

And finally, the "integrated" management practiced by Sima, who controlled both Sibex and WBS Romania, apparently favored his brokerage firm, which according to some claims, made a net profit of about 1.4 million lei in the first quarter of 2012, whereas over the same period, Sibex had a profit of... less than 2000 lei.

Sima was unwilling to answer questions on these subjects, and instead lost his cool and resorted to the absurd blackmail attempt, which I wrote about on September 3rd.

At the time, his reaction confused us - he neither expressly confirmed, nor denied the rumors, it was just his nervousness that seemed to confirm they were true.

Today, after his flight, after the stammering in his televised interventions, it is clear that he had control over WBS Romania (he clearly said that he had been pressured "to sell WBS Romania" - how could anyone sell what they don't have?!).

Some may remember that, during his first TV intervention after his disappearance, he said that WBS had begun experiencing problems since four years ago.

He later claimed that the firm had only had a rough patch for three months, and then he claimed that everything had been going perfectly until March.

I think that his first statement was the true one and that the other two are lies.

I do indeed believe that Sima created a pyramid scheme, which could still go on for a while, if somebody were to give him a million Euros.

In other words, a petty theft.