Geneva Connection, The (13 page)

“You can bet our competitors have been exploiting our difficulty,” said Kirkland.

“Dead right. I’ll handle the PR aspects with Paul.” Kent nodded toward Prentis.

Kent turned to Kirkland and Henning. “I think it’s worth contacting Doug Wright to see if we can get back into that deal. It was a great one, after all.”

“I’m pretty certain the deal’s not completed yet. Let’s put a call in right after this meeting,” replied Kirkland. “You never know.”

“It won’t be an easy conversation,” said Henning.

“Don’t look so worried, Anton. We’ve nothing to lose,” replied Kent.

They moved on to discuss new deal inquiries. Although the flow of new business opportunities had fallen off a cliff after CBC lost the backing of Grampian, there were still a couple of new deals to consider and terms to kick around. Business as usual for Kent.

At five o’clock., Kent, Kirkland and Henning went back to Kent’s office to make the call to Henderson Wright. “I’ll make it on the speaker phone. Tara, could you get hold of Doug Wright for us?” Kent shouted through his open door.

“Sure.” She called their offices. “Putting Mr. Wright through to you.”

“What the hell do you want?” asked Wright.

“Doug, as you know, we lost our cornerstone investor just as we committed to do your deal a few weeks back. We’d really like to take another shot at it, now we have the checkbook back.”

“We don’t need your money and, even if we did, we wouldn’t take it. Now fuck off!” Wright slammed down the phone.

“That went well,” said Kirkland.

“He must’ve found the backing elsewhere. Shit!” said Kent. “Let’s track the deal as their backers might still pull out. You never know.” A deal was never done until it was signed at the closing meeting. Kent had seen many situations where a private equity firm had pulled out of a deal close to the finish line. In fact, some of his best deals had been completed in just these circumstances, where he could step in and rescue the investment at the last minute. The best part was, at the eleventh hour, he could always name his terms.

Kent made it home that night for seven o’clock. He’d only had time to send her a brief text that morning. Now he could spell out how he’d reeled in the giant investor and saved his firm.

“It’s wonderful news, John. I’m really proud of you.”

He hugged her. “It’s a huge relief. Feels great to be back.”

“How do you feel about Tritona as a shareholder in your firm?”

“It’s a small price to pay for such a huge commitment. I’ll still have majority control. We’re going to be rich on the back of this, Sarah.”

“Tell me all about the bit when they said yes. I want to hear everything.”

Kent was delighted to share all the details, except one. The guilt was eating him up inside.

Chapter 17

J
ONATHAN
G
ATELEY
T
OOK
T
HE
N
ORTH
E
XIT
from St Paul’s tube station and darted into Caffé Zero at the end of Cheapside as it was beginning to rain.

“Strong white Americano?” asked the server. Gateley just smiled. The server was already making it before he could answer.

“That’s great, thanks.” He placed the exact money on the counter, grabbed the coffee, and doubled back across Cheapside and into Paternoster Square, heading for his offices on the north side. He kept close to the buildings to avoid the drizzle.

Gateley took the express elevator to the nineteenth floor, taking care as he rushed not to spill his hot coffee. The modern glass sign, to the left of the reception area as he walked in, read, “Oakham Fiduciary Services—Wealth Management for high net worth individuals and multinational corporations, with offices in London, Guernsey, Nassau, Singapore and Hong Kong.”

He was in a hurry. Due to meet a client at six p.m., Gateley was cutting it fine when he’d left his previous meeting in Chelsea at five fifteen. He could have saved some time by going straight to the office, but the coffee from Caffé Zero was superior to the brown liquid served in the office, so he’d taken the risk. It was the right call. He made it to the meeting room with five minutes to spare.

Gateley was the CEO at Oakham and was well-known in investment circles for his big tax brain. Today’s meeting was with a new client and his accountant. The client had just sold his IT business for two hundred and forty million pounds and wanted Gateley’s advice on where best to hold the proceeds pending the client’s later investment instructions. Bread and butter work for Oakham.

After the meeting, Gateley returned to his corner office. On one side was a view of the London Stock Exchange and on the other St Paul’s Cathedral.

“Do you have a minute?” asked Gordon Thompson, one of Gateley’s senior team members, as he walked through the door.

“Sure,” Gateley said.

“We’ve received another investment instruction from our friends in Geneva. They want us to invest three hundred and fifty million pounds of the cash we hold for them in Nassau in these FTSE 100 companies.” Thompson handed over a list of six of the largest one hundred companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. “As with last month’s instructions, the client is not really concerned about the price we pay for the stock, but doesn’t want the market to think they’re building up a significant holding. They don’t want the attention.”

“I know they like a low profile.”

Thompson laughed. “That’s one way of putting it. I’ve never come across a firm more secretive than Tritona.”

“As long as they keep paying our fees, we’ll do what they want. I assume they’d like us to spread the purchases across a number of their holding companies as before?”

“That’s right. I need your advice on which vehicles to use and in which jurisdictions.”

“No problem. How quickly do they want us to build up these holdings?”

“Over two weeks, three at the outside. They said they’ll have a similar amount to invest next month.”

Gateley mapped out on a sheet of paper where the cash should first be transferred, which of the client’s existing trust arrangements should be used, and which brokers should be used to effect the stock purchases in each jurisdiction.

“Can you have a copy of this typed up and put on the Tritona file, as usual?”

“Will do, Jonathan. Thanks for the help.”

It was a crisp late March morning. The outside temperature was just below zero, but didn’t feel like it due to the unbroken blue sky. Kent had parked his BMW in the four-car garage at The Old Hall the night before. He couldn’t be bothered with scraping ice from the windscreen so he rarely left the car outside during the cold months. This morning, he was a little later than usual as he wasn’t going to the office. This gave him a chance to have breakfast with Sarah, something he was trying to make more time for these days. He still hadn’t forgiven himself for his indiscretion with Tara. While spending more time with his wife would hardly absolve him, at least it made him feel a little better.

He was due in Leeds at eleven thirty for a regular board meeting at one of CBC’s investee companies. Each of the partners took primary responsibility for a number of portfolio companies. This involved sitting on the company’s board as a director and working with its management team to maximize the value of the business. While it wasn’t his favorite part of the job, the right focus on investee companies created increased realization values when the businesses were eventually sold.

On the drive to Leeds, he made several calls on his mobile phone. The first was to Kevin Long.

“Where are we up to on the Tritona compliance checks, Kevin?”

All regulated financial services companies were under strict legal requirements to check out the identity of new investors and to ensure they didn’t appear on the Bank of England’s blacklist before accepting capital from them.

“We’re in pretty good shape, but there’s been quite a lot of paperwork to wade through. I’d expect to have it all signed off pretty soon.”

“I know it’s a pain. They have a complex structure.”

“The time consuming bit is building the file in case the FCA chooses us for an audit.”

“That’s tedious. The real criminals will always find a way around the rules. In the meantime, it’s us poor suckers that have to jump through hoops.”

As CEO of CBC, Kent had ultimate responsibility for compliance as far as the FCA was concerned, so he had to take these compliance checks seriously. Not that they changed the way he did business. It was in CBC’s own interest to do things properly. It took years to build up a good business reputation and this could be shattered in moments if there was any hint of illegal activity.

“Will you let me know when everything’s been completed? I want to get on investing Tritona’s money. It would be good to show them some early results.”

“Certainly will. My guess is it’ll all be done by tomorrow evening.”

“Good man.”

Chapter 18

T
WO
D
AYS
L
ATER
, Kent was sitting in his office when he took a call from Baumgart.

“How are you, Dieter?”

“Very well, thank you,” said Baumgart. Kent held the handset slightly away from his ear. Baumgart was loud enough in person. Hearing his voice booming down the line was almost unbearable. “I’m calling from Singapore. I’ve had to come over here on an unexpected business trip. I was hoping to be in London tomorrow for a deal closing, but that’s not possible any longer. It would have been a good opportunity for us to meet up and see where we are on everything.”

“I’m sorry we can’t meet up. Maybe next time.”

“There’s something you guys could do for us, however.”

“Always happy to help.”

“Good. As you know, before committing to your fund, all of our private equity investments were handled by us directly and not through fund managers.”

“I remember you saying that.”

“Well, we have another direct deal completing tomorrow.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry. It’s one we started before we committed to CBC.”

Kent forced a laugh. “That’s a relief.”

“It involves us putting one billion pounds into the transaction. All of the legal documentation is ready, and the due diligence is complete, but there are the usual last-minute matters which need to be dealt with at the meeting in London tomorrow.”

“We’d be happy to take care of that for you.”

“That’s exactly what I was hoping. It would be good for you to see how we do things, anyway.”

“Can you e-mail over the draft investment documents and a power of attorney so we can sign on your behalf?”

“I’ll ask Franz Kulpman to send over everything you need today. When you’re happy everything’s in order tomorrow, all you need to do is contact Gordon Thompson at a firm called Oakham Fiduciary Services in London, and he’ll transfer the money electronically. They hold some of our cash. I’ll get him to call you with his details.”

“I’ll let you know when it’s completed. Have a safe trip back from Singapore.”

“Thanks. One more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“We’d like you to manage this investment on our behalf, once it’s done. Of course, the monthly monitoring fees will go to CBC, and we can discuss a performance fee linked to the exit value when we next meet.”

This relationship’s getting even better
, thought Kent when the call was over. It made sense for Tritona to use CBC to manage any companies bought directly by them. After all, managing portfolio companies was what CBC was good at.

An hour later, Tara came into Kent’s office with the e-mail from Kulpman and the print-out of the draft investment agreement he’d sent.

Kent grabbed the stack of papers. “Thanks, Tara. Could you ask Joanna to join me so we can review these together?”

“I think you’ll find the deal an interesting read,” she said with a hint of mischief in her voice.

“Why do you say that? You can’t have read them already. Even you’re not that quick.”