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

conversation lapsed into talk of family connections, past and present, as they whiled away the last hour before Andrew drove back to Heathrow and, only after they had said their good byes, did he remember that he had intended to pass on his mother’s contact details, neatly written out and contained in an envelope in his pocket.
This morning he had put the deal together.
Coulter Brothers would fund the rights issue plus an additional sum which would be used to underwrite the modern-isation of the Edelman factory in Stuttgart. Franz’s modernisation plan involved the purchase of a large tract of land beside the existing factory and the new build of fifty thousand square metres of clean-air space designed to accommodate the new machines. Land development prices in the south of Stuttgart were currently strong and, if the Mercedes contracts were a bit slow in coming, the initial equity would be covered by the appreciation in the land values.
Andrew had explained the Edelman family connection to Coulter’s Risk Management Board as a precaution should there be any suggestion of insider knowledge and they had agreed that this was a special case. Moreover, as Coulter’s would end up with a valuable asset, namely a majority holding in the German company, all would be well. Once the acceptance documentation had arrived from Uncle Franz, they would sell the asset on the open market as if it were a done deal. On the back of the envelope, Edelman’s would get what they wanted, at a price, and Coulter’s would clear several million Euros without ever actually spending a cent of their own.
Andrew commented to Ed Williams, his close friend and department head, that this was - “Investment banking at its finest.”

§§§§§

On Friday morning Lucy brought breakfast to their bedroom. She also brought the pile of envelopes containing the birthday cards that she had been collecting from the morning post during the week. They showered together, a treat normally reserved for Sunday mornings, and prepared for the short drive to the Porsche garage in Maidenhead. The phone rang while they were still dripping on the bedroom carpet and Andrew took the call. Coulter Brothers Frankfurt Office had started due diligence on the Edelman deal and all was in hand.
An hour and a half later, Andrew was signing the last sheet of several that would make him the owner of the silver 4.8 litre V8 Panamera S, presently sitting on the forecourt of the showroom, being fondly polished by the floor salesman who would probably take his wife out to dinner on the strength of his commission. The mobile vibrated in Andrew’s pocket and he took the second call of the day from Ed Williams.
Frankfurt had OK’ed the deal with the regulators at the DAX and his bonus, the usual percentage, would be paid into his account at the end of the quarter. Andrew looked again at the date on the papers on the desk in front of him. How could he forget his birthday, Friday the twelfth of September? The bonus cash would be in the bank by the end of the month. He began to wish that he had ordered the Panamera Turbo instead.
The garage had filled the tank on the Panamera and promised to deliver his Jag back to his home address where they would park it in the drive and put his keys through his letter box. He trusted them implicitly; after all, this was a lot of money to spend on a car.
The growl of the V8 Porsche engine was calculated to turn heads, and did so, as they drove through Maidenhead towards the motorway junction. Behind the tinted glass windows, Andrew and Lucy giggled like children with a new toy as they set off for a late lunch in Brighton.
Andrew used the cruise control to sit at seventy miles per hour on the M23, allowing lesser mortals to speed past him, pausing to covet the Porsche as they went. Andrew quite liked being coveted. A police car cruised up behind them, waited and then slowly overtook with both the driver and his partner looking over the shiny new bodywork.
“You don’t get me today.” Andrew grinned at Lucy as the police car went on its way.
Lucy had booked a table at ‘The Gables’, a small, family-owned restaurant in a side road near the beach, between Brighton and Hove. They found The Gables many years ago, before they were married, and it was a particular treat for them to eat there whenever they could. It was the only place they knew where they could have the dining room to themselves between the conventional lunch and dinner times. Jenny Black, the owner and head chef, was happy to take their money at any time of day. They always ordered the best and tipped well.
A birthday bottle of Krug was waiting, on ice, when they arrived.
A thin pink line of sun-setting haze rested on the distant horizon when they emerged from The Gables. It signalled the last of the daylight as Andrew fired up the Porsche, searching the unfamiliar dashboard for the lighting controls. He wished they had not drunk so much wine but it was too late now. He would be ultra careful on the way home. The risk of being caught amused him even though he reckoned that he was unlikely to get stopped at this early hour unless he gave the police good reason to do so.
Lucy explored the integrated Sat-Nav system and then the radio, hitting the channel change button in a random fashion to see where it stopped. Jazz FM was their favourite channel and it took some time to find it in the dim light of the cockpit. For a moment she paused on a local news channel just long enough to catch the news reader mention Wall Street. Andrew’s ears caught the mention but Lucy had moved on and couldn’t find the channel again. A Benny Goodman track blasted out from the array of speakers built into the close confines of the cab and they both hummed along with the music for the next twenty miles.
It was late, almost eleven thirty, when they finally turned into their drive in Gerrards Cross. Andrew blipped the remote to open the garage doors and drove the Panamera into the space that he had cleaned out especially for it. The garage door closed silently behind them and they entered the house via the kitchen door.
Anticipating their return, Lucy had left two champagne glasses on the kitchen table with a note announcing, ‘Krug is in the fridge. See you upstairs birthday boy.’
It was well after ten on Saturday morning when Andrew came downstairs and noticed the light blinking on the answer machine in the hall. It was another half hour before he bothered to hit the button to replay the messages.
“Happy Birthday Andrew. Andrew this is your mother, if you’re there pick up the phone.”
“Andy, Happy Birthday you old bugger. Don’t forget to call your loving brother over the weekend.”
“Mr. McAllister, our agent is in your area this week . . .”
“Andrew, this is Ed, give me a call if you can. . . . . . If not . . . . I’ll call you again. Don’t be late on Monday.”
Andrew switched off the machine, collected the newspapers off the door mat and staggered back upstairs.
On Saturday evening he booked a table at the Waterside Inn at Bray, it was the only place he could think of where he could park the Porsche without it being too obvious. Dinner was as dinner always is at The Waterside Inn, expensive but impeccable and worth every penny. Lucy particularly liked the guinea foul in plum sauce and, as Andrew particularly like Lucy, it was a done deal. Andrew liked done deals.
When they arrived back in Gerrards Cross the answer phone was blinking again.
“Andrew this is Ed. Call me.”
Andrew called Ed on Sunday morning after breakfast.
“Good morning Boss, what’s the problem?”
“There’s all sorts of crap happening in the Wall Street office.”
“Like what?”
“Like don’t you ever listen to the news?”
“Sure, you mean the bail-out business. Is the White House still blowing hot and cold on the Fed?”
“Exactly but the blowing is getting distinctly cold. It seems that Hank Poulson is refusing to bail us out. We’re dead in the water. “
“Say that bit again.”
“The word is that the Wall Street office will file for bankruptcy under Chapter 11, first thing tomorrow morning. That’s all I know at the moment. For goodness sake don’t be late in on Monday morning.”
The phone went dead.
Lucy caught the tone in Andrew’s voice and she hurried down stairs to find him sitting on the bottom step with the phone still in his hand.
He recounted the gist of the call from Ed and followed up with, “I can’t believe it. All the other firms have had shed loads of government money. Why not us? Why not Coulters?”
Lucy put her arm around Andrew’s shoulder and kissed him on the cheek. “It has to be a mistake. Wall Street will sort it out, won’t they?”
Breakfast was taken in silence; Andrew knew that Coulters was overextended, way over the average. He also knew that their vulnerability was no secret, in truth Coulter Brothers had been on the market for six months with the best offer to date being from some obscure bank in Korea. He began to formulate his plan for Monday morning. Step one would be to contact all of his best clients and pour some soothing oil on their troubled waters. Step two would be to look after A. F. McAllister.
Andrew turned on the television and switched to the news channels. Anxious men in suits took turns in denying any wrong doing and claiming to know nothing about anything. Frantic reporters repeated their nothing words and handed the subject back to the anchor in the studio. Frantic interviewers struggled to get anyone to comment on anything. Andrew recognised some of the interviewees, others he had heard of, none of them were going to influence the headline news. The main players were notably absent from the screens.
Only one line stuck in his mind, “Main Street not Wall Street”, a quote attributed to Hank Poulson by a windblown blonde girl reporter for Fox News from her position somewhere on Pennsylvania Avenue. The White House was looking to make an example of someone and Coulter’s was first in line.
The phone rang, it was his brother Peter.
“Happy birthday bro. Does this Wall Street stuff affect you?
“Thanks Pete. I’ve no idea. Ed called, all will be revealed on Monday morning.”
They chatted and Andrew waxed lyrical about the new Porsche before hanging up to take another call.
“Andrew, have you heard about the American office?”
Only Alec Evans ever called the American parent company, the American office. Everyone else just called it Wall Street. Everyone who worked there believed that Coulter brothers and Wall Street were synonymous. Without Coulter Brothers there would be no Wall Street.
“Good morning Alec, what do you know that the rest of us don’t?”
Alec Evans was a lead analyst in Andrew’s team and Andrew was not going to admit to being in the dark about the breaking news.
“Come on Alec, its still early Sunday morning in the States, no one will be up until noon. Tell me what you know and we can catch up in the morning. Don’t be late in; it could be an interesting morning.”
Alec repeated the general news reports but had nothing new to add. He promised to meet Andrew at Starbucks before eight o’clock and hung up.
The time had raced by, it was nearly one. Lucy brought Andrew a bacon sandwich and tapped him firmly