For The Love Of Money - Brian Doswell (speed reading book .TXT) 📗

Sir William Williams rested an arm on the back of Sue Padworth’s chair and bent forward to whisper in her ear. A waft of pungent aftershave caught in her throat and she resisted the impulse to gag.
“Have George give me a call will you sweetie.” Sue winced.
Three other Sunningdale ladies carefully looked away in case he should choose them next but they need not have worried, Sir Billy was not on his best form. He had come to the NGC from a meeting with his architects, in anticipation of finding Sue in the restaurant. He needed to speak to George urgently but preferably not in either of their offices. Dark clouds were forming over the District Planning Office in Slough. In brief, or as brief as architects ever were, the billions of pounds pumped into the denizens of Threadneedle Street had forced the government housing plans onto the back burner. Suddenly the need to build fifty thousand new homes had become a forgotten issue, as had the much-touted initiative to restructure the town planning process. Twenty seven acres of newly acquired, prime building land was beginning to look like a nice green park for the kiddies and not much else.
Sir William had diverted his entire legal department onto the task of wriggling out of the contract with Harry Joyce but so far Harry had the upper hand and Sir William had five working days to pay over the balance of eight million or default on the contract. The default clause required him to forfeit the title to the land and pay half the agreed amount by way of compensation.
Williams Fine Homes was indeed a nationwide building company with an elaborate portfolio of designs and new build properties ready to come to market all over the country. Technically, the net worth of WFH plc. amounted to billions but, like every one of its contemporaries, its book assets and the working capital were a different story. Leverage was the buzz word. Leverage sounded much more American, more energetic than gearing. Gearing had pedantry painted all over it. Either way, every asset on the WFH books had been used at least twice over to borrow the working capital to pay the building contractors who actually laid the bricks, and were presently threatening not to. Better yet, the newly installed, twelve million pound computer system gathered up every available bit of cash at five o’clock each evening and deposited it in a hedge fund from where it fully expected to get it back, with interest, in the morning. There being nothing but the best for Sir William, his personal instruction to his accountants had been to use the renowned global fund management services of Coulter Brothers. However, since Coulter Brothers had filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 in the State of New York, all depositor funds, worldwide, were frozen until further notice. All was safely gathered in and there it stayed.
Sir William needed cash, and quickly.
The housing development had seemed like a life-line. Eight million of other people’s money, paid over in cash, would have stemmed the tide, and indeed had done, for a while. Now the closing date was a mere five days away and no one had managed to unlock a brass farthing from the banks to replace it. Moreover, half of the eight million had already gone out to the contractors for the monthly wages. Sir William had spent enough years close to the ground with bricklayers, who were the salt of the earth, to learn a few choice expressions. He had never needed to air this specialised vocabulary in his own boardroom, until now.
One spark of hope lay on the horizon. Like most of those who had knelt before the Queen, for services rendered to the nation, Sir William had grown accustomed to his title and wanted more. A peerage would suit him nicely. He even had draft headed paper ready in his private study, bearing the heading, ‘Lord Williams of Heathcoat’, Heathcoat being the name of his country house in Wiltshire. He knew that the Sergeant at Arms might not be able to grant him that title but it pleased him to fondle the note paper in anticipation of the day. The spark that had now ignited in his mind offered the possibility of killing two birds with one stone.
It had begun at the last board meeting, with a chance remark by his Director of Building Services. The man was responsible for the construction aspects of WFH, and as such, was the one with the problem of how to pay the bricklayers. A large proportion of WFH bricklayers were Irish and Sir William had deliberately engaged an Irishman to oversee his construction work. The boardroom discussion, essentially between Sir William and his Finance Director, had been about the need to extend their credit when the lilting bass voice of Patrick O’Donnell drowned the pair of them.
“For the Lord’s sake why dosen’t the pair of you get over to Dublin and try the Irish banks, they’re supposed to be giving the stuff away.”
In the week that followed, Sir William, with the aid of his Finance Director and the Deputy Chairman of the Bank of Ireland, who harboured aspirations to become the President of the Republic, had outlined a scheme that might yet save the day. Sir William and WFH would build two schools in the rapidly expanding Dublin suburbs. In essence, WFH would build these schools at cost, using Dublin based labour wherever possible. In return, the Bank would open an extended line of credit to cover Sir William’s immediate needs. In Sir William’s mind, the schools would become fine examples of his noble charity works, worthy indeed of a Baronetcy. He could already feel the ermine on his collar. Unfortunately for Sir William, the whole deal required the approval of the Governors of the bank and the explicit collaboration of the Minister of Finance who was presently in London attending a meeting of European finance ministers and not due back for three days. Meanwhile, the deadline on the contract for twenty seven acres of Harry Joyce’s land grew ever closer.

§§§§§

Over dinner in Sunningdale, George listened to Sue’s lengthy description of her golf match and that odious little man who had had the nerve to lay his hand on her shoulder with such suggestion of intimacy that she was forced to blush.
George could not recall the last time he had seen Sue blush. George had his own problems and was listening with only half an ear.
“So will you phone him and tell him to keep his hands to himself.”
“Phone who?”
“Oh for God’s sake George, don’t you ever bloody well listen?”
George pushed aside his cheese plate, leaving a large piece of his favourite Stilton and the crumbs of a digestive biscuit. “I’m sorry; tell me that last bit again.”
“Sir William wants you to call him. He said it was important. And tell him to keep his hands off my body.”
“I’ll do it now.” George rose from the table and headed for the privacy of his study.
George had no great liking for Sir William. They had first met a year ago, at a Mansion House dinner where Sir William had given a particularly boring after-dinner speech on the potential impact of sub-prime mortgages on the building industry. Wilkinson’s had sponsored a table of ten guests and George had felt obliged to invite Sir William to meet them. The evening had gone well enough but he had come home with the feeling that Sir William had only told half of the story.
“Sir William, you wanted me to call.”
“Hello George, please call me Billy. I need to update you on our little project.”
“Go ahead, I’m listening.” George did not really want to call anyone ‘Billy’.
“We have a few contractual details still to sort out, planning stuff, very boring but necessary. Now then, you know there are two more share holders who wish to remain anonymous, not my idea, you understand. Well they have indicated that they are looking for a quicker exit route for their investment and so there are four shares up for grabs. It’s an opportunity George. Are you interested? I’m sure you want to speak to Sue. Call me back, but make it soon, this is too good to miss.”
George replaced the telephone in its rest having deliberately omitted to mention Sue’s personal message. The offer was tempting but, right now, he had other things on his mind. He had spent the afternoon considering how to deal with the tip that he had received from an old friend at the Financial Services Authority. Questions were being asked about the apparent good fortune that Wilkinson’s had enjoyed from the BASF deal. The pirate web site had worried him at the time but he had chosen to ignore his gut feel. On reflection, nothing would have come of it if they had not been quite so lucky with their scoop of the market. Hindsight is a wonderful thing; with hindsight he should have shared Chrissie’s information with one or two of his close contacts to make it appear less specific to Wilkinson’s. However, it was too late now. Now his problem was to find a suitable answer for the FSA, should they choose to pursue it.
George spun his chair round in circles, a habit that he tried to break. Marjorie, his trusty PA, often said that she knew when he was really worried; he spun his chair round in circles. George stopped spinning but he remained convinced that Sir William was not telling him the whole story.

§§§§§

David Morris had also not had a good day. He enjoyed his position at Andersons, it had been a well deserved promotion and he was determined to do his best for the bank and its clients. However, he had not reckoned that, as a debt counsellor, his life would be full of hardship cases, not all of which would be as easy to sort out as Emma’s had been. Today’s case had been one of many on a growing list in his in-tray. A mature couple, who had been clients of Andersons all their working lives, had planned their retirement around a house move with Andersons as the mortgage lenders. It was a familiar story. They had accepted the Andersons Low Cost mortgage scheme which was not really low cost at all. They had borrowed far more than they could afford on the premise that the first two years were one point below the base rate and the remaining twenty-five years at four points above. The Andersons mortgage advisor, Lia Patel, had assured them that, by buying a house in a better part of town, they would be able to re-mortgage as the value of their house increased. Two years into the scheme, he had lost his job and, at fifty-seven years old, he had little chance of ever getting another. Coincidentally, Andersons had stopped considering re-mortgage applications. There was no way back. David’s only solution was to arrange for Andersons to repossess the house on as gentle terms as he could manage. He had spent the afternoon on the phone to his contact at Three Trees estate agents to find a suitable rental place but the market was very tight. Unless they could find a buyer at a reasonable market price, the bank would be forced to repossess at the auction price and a two bedroom flat in Pinner was likely to become their sole retirement option.
David knew very well that the couple would see Andersons as the villains of the peace and himself as Andersons’ repre-sentative. There was little that he could do about that except do his job, as sensitively as he could. By chance,