Zero-sum game

Exactly one year ago, Märpel warned you that President Battistelli has decided he needed a blank check to play with the EPO cash reserves (2.3 BILLIONS Euros) on the stock and derivatives market. Here is the article:

http://rip-kat.blogspot.com/2018/05/nothing-can-be-said-to-be-certain.html

The resulting fund is called "EPO Treasury Investment Fund" or EPOTIF.

A few days ago, the financial status report was published. Within that report, the following gem was found:

In 2018 the Office transferred its legacy bonds portfolio to the EPO Treasury Investment Fund (EPOTIF) which holds the funds in line with the Strategic Asset Allocation approved by the BFC. As at the end of 2018 the total value of EPOTIF units was € 2 460m, which includes a revaluation loss for the year of € 97m.

Just after two days that sentence was redacted, it now reads:

In 2018 the Office transferred its legacy bonds portfolio to the EPO Treasury Investment Fund (EPOTIF) which holds the funds in line with the Strategic Asset Allocation approved by the BFC. As at the end of 2018 the total value of EPOTIF units was € 2 460m.

Märpel is confident that the readers will spot the difference. Hint: it involves 97 millions Euros.

That amount of money was lost between mai and December 2018. Or, more precisely, it was lost for the EPO. Short term speculation is usually a zero-sum game: when somebody loses, somebody else wins. Why do you think that President Battistelli absolutely had to get EPOTIF approved just one month before he left the Office?