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  "documentTitle": "China MediaExpress Holdings (CCME)",
  "authorId": "51_Muddy_Waters",
  "authorName": "Carson C. Block",
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  "sourceTypeSlug": "short_seller",
  "sourceTypeLabel": "Short seller",
  "presentationDate": "2011-02-03 00:00:00",
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  "notes": "Muddy Waters research note exposing corporate fraud.",
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      "kind": "callout",
      "text": "CCME Claims that its Top 10 Advertisers Include Large Global Brands. We Doubt this is True.",
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      "text": "We surveyed six major buyers of outdoor digital media in China to understand their opinions of CCME’s platform. This proved to be difficult because none of them had ever heard of CCME. Strangely, these buyers represent some of the same advertisers that CCME trumpets as clients. It is hard to imagine that the clients buy CCME media outside of the buyers – after all, CCME claims that the large majority of its revenue comes through agencies, rather than directly.",
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      "text": "On December 28, 2010, the Company issued a press release in which it announced that it had launched an online shopping platform, www.switow.com (\"SWITOW\"). In the release, it stated that \"[SWITOW] has already signed contracts with many prestigious global and Chinese domestic companies or their distributors such as Apple...\"",
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      "kind": "paragraph",
      "text": "In an apparent attempt to confer legitimacy on itself, CCME states that it is doing business with prestigious multinational brands, including Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL). This is a lie.",
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      "kind": "paragraph",
      "text": "Seeing is not believing in this case. It is not uncommon for small media companies in China to show ads from large prestigious brands with which they have no contract or business relationship. Usually this is done in order to impress potential advertisers. We suspect that CCME does this to a fair extent, but to impress investors.",
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      "text": "AAPL only has two online distributors in China, one of which is Amazon.com subsidiary Joyo (www.amazon.cn). AAPL does not have any agreement with SWITOW (or CCME). Further it does not permit its China licensees to sub-license. Therefore, CCME is abjectly lying about this agreement.",
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      "text": "16 See CCME press release “China MediaExpress Holdings, Inc. Launches New Shopping Platform – SWITOW” (December 28, 2011).",
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      "kind": "title",
      "text": "Upsetting the Apple Cart",
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