Geneva Connection, The (14 page)

“Take a look at the name of the target company on the second page.”

He looked down at the papers. There it was on page two, highlighted in yellow by Tara. Tritona had agreed to invest one billion pounds in Henderson Wright.

Kent shook his head. “Wow! Those guys in Geneva are smart. Wait until Joanna hears about this.”

Kirkland came in a few minutes later. “I gather we have a deal to complete for Tritona already,” she said. “They don’t hang about.”

Kent tried to suppress a grin. “That’s right. You and I need to go down to London tomorrow to complete a direct investment for them. I’ve got the paperwork here. There’s a copy for you.” He slid a bundle of papers across the desk. “I suggest we look at them for a few minutes together first before both of us digest them over night.”

Kirkland sat on one of Kent’s armchairs and began flicking through the documents. “You’re never going to believe this,” she said, raising her head, mouth wide open.

“I know. Tara pointed it out to me a moment ago. I wanted to leave the surprise for you. We’re going to have some fun with Wright tomorrow,” he said, now grinning.

Kirkland flicked through the pages then stopped. “It gets better. I see Tritona has offered the exact same deal as we did—an eighty percent/ twenty percent split of the equity.”

“I told you they were shrewd investors.”

“It should be an interesting day.”

“I can’t wait to see Wright’s face when we turn up.”

Chapter 19

K
ENT
A
ND
K
IRKLAND
had one of the firm’s drivers take them down from Cambridge to Henderson Wright’s offices on the North Colonnade at Canary Wharf, a few miles east of the City of London. It was only a sixty-mile drive and so much easier than taking the train to London; getting out to Canary Wharf from the City was a pain in the neck as far as Kent was concerned.

They arrived early so, rather than being dropped at the door, they walked from the car park over to the office building—fifty-two floors of concrete and steel. It reminded Kent why he’d chosen to locate CBC in Cambridge.
A city with real character with real buildings.
He stared at the hundreds of people going to work, like ants running backward and forward into the various tower blocks.
Modern day factories
.

Joining the line for the security check was another thing Kent detested about these buildings. It always took ages to get through their inane procedures and up to the meeting floor.

“You don’t know how much I’m looking forward to seeing our friend,” said Kirkland, making a poor job of hiding her smile.

“Me, too,” said Kent as they finally made it through the barrier.

They made their way up to the meeting room level on the fiftieth floor and announced themselves to the receptionist. “We’re from Tritona for Mr. Wright,” said Kent, winking at Kirkland.

“Mr. Wright’s PA will be here to collect you in a few moments. Please take a seat,” said the receptionist, pointing over to the waiting area.

What an absolute jerk
, Kent thought
. Wright’s soon-to-be eighty percent owners have just arrived and, rather than collect them himself, he expects us to wait while a PA comes along. The man’s a fool.

They waited five minutes, compelled to listen to the oversize flat-screen televisions in the waiting area. Why these giant screens were supposed to enhance the visitor’s first impression of the firm was beyond Kent.

He pointed to the TV above his head then looked at Kirkland. “If I ever suggest putting in one of those bloody things at CBC, you have permission to shoot me.”

“Mr. Wright will see you now,” said the officious young woman who came to collect them.

Does she think Wright is doing us the favor?
Kent thought.

They followed her through to an enormous meeting room, filled with lawyers and representatives from Henderson Wright’s banks. Kent estimated there were fifty-five to sixty people in the room, running about, shuffling papers. Wright was holding court in the middle of the crowd, seemingly full of his own self-importance.

“You’d hardly suspect that is the same man who’s brought his firm to the brink of collapse,” whispered Kent into Kirkland’s ear.

“What the hell are you doing here?” shouted Wright across the room when he saw Kent. The room fell silent.

Kent could see Wright was struggling to process the situation. “We’re here to complete the deal, of course.”

Wright looked as if he had a bad smell under his nose. “You’re mistaken. We’re doing the deal with Tritona.”

“We manage Tritona’s private equity investments.” That was true, but Wright didn’t need to know this was the first deal to be managed by CBC on Tritona’s behalf. “Did no one tell you?”

“Over my dead body!” Wright’s face reddened. “There’s no way I’m going to sign this deal if CBC effectively controls eighty per cent of Henderson Wright. The deal’s off.” He looked across at a group of bankers, who did not jump to his support.

Kent shrugged his shoulders. “Then we’ll leave.” He put some papers back into his briefcase and sauntered toward the exit.

“Please,” said one of the senior bankers seated at the conference table. “Can we persuade you to stay for a moment?”

Wright threw the banker a shit-look, but he ignored it.

“We represent most of the banking lines extended to Henderson Wright. If this deal doesn’t happen today, then early next week we’ll be appointing an administrative receiver to sell off this firm bit by bit.” He turned to Wright. “Is that what you want, Doug?” Wright looked down at the table. “You’ll be spelling the end of Henderson Wright.”

All eyes in the room focused on Wright. “I will not work with CBC. It’s that simple,” he said.

This confirmed what Kent already knew. Henderson Wright was up against the wall with no real choice but to do this deal, and working with Wright would be impossible. He was too much of a hothead, who managed by the seat of his pants. After all, it was Wright’s impulsive decision to do the German deal with insufficient non-compete protection that caused all of this mess in the first place. Wright was an expendable commodity, and this was Kent’s chance to remove him. What he didn’t want to happen now was for the banker to persuade Wright to work with CBC for the sake of the deal.

“Our position has changed,” Kent announced to the room. “We will only complete this deal if Mr. Wright is no longer part of it. After all, he’s made it abundantly clear he won’t work with us as controlling shareholder. That’s obviously an untenable position.”

Wright, fists clenched and eyes narrowed, looked ready to jump out of his seat and lunge at Kent.

“Could you please let us have a few minutes, Mr. Kent?” asked the banker.

“Of course. Joanna and I will go out for a coffee. We’ll be back in half an hour.”

Kent and Kirkland went down to the ground floor, where they found a big-brand coffee retailing concession that took up most of that level of the Henderson Wright building. “This will be one of the first things to go,” Kent said, looking round at all the wasted space. “I counted three coffee shops in the two hundred yards we walked from the car park. I cannot understand why they need to waste a whole floor on another.”

“Do you think Wright will fall on his sword?” asked Kirkland.

“I’m certain of it. It’s really a decision for the banks at this stage, anyway. They’re calling the shots. They’ll be up there now squeezing him hard. He has nowhere else to go. Of course, he’ll say he resigned, but he’s just been fired.”

They finished their coffee and returned to the meeting room. Wright was no longer there.

“Mr. Wright has decided to step down from the firm as senior partner with immediate effect,” said the banker. “I trust this will now allow us to proceed?”

“Just one more thing,” said Kent.

“What’s that?”

“Our equity stake has gone up from eighty percent to eighty-five.” The papers Kent had read overnight said that Wright was going to have five percent of the equity for himself, with the other seven senior partners sharing the remaining fifteen percent. At a stroke, Kent had just increased the attraction of the deal for Tritona without taking away anything from the remaining management team members, with whom he would have to work. Indeed, the other partners were likely to have as much antipathy toward Wright as Kent had. No doubt, they’d be delighted to see Wright’s departure.

“Very well. Let’s get this deal done,” said the banker.

Chapter 20

T
HE
S
PRING
A
ND
E
ARLY
S
UMMER
months were busy for the team at CBC. Since completing the Henderson Wright deal, the firm had been flooded with new deal inquiries. That transaction had raised CBC’s profile and proved that the firm was back in business. The market’s reaction to CBC’s new, expanded checkbook was phenomenal. Kent was back on the map and now regarded as a major player, with investment banks bringing him ever-larger deals to consider. The deepening recession was throwing up more and more great deals, and his team could pick and choose the transactions they wanted. In the space of just three months, they’d completed twelve buyout transactions across the globe, investing ten billion of the twenty billion pound new fund. They were making a lot of money for Tritona and for themselves. Life was good, very good. Kent was like a dog with two dicks, strutting around the investment market as if he owned it.

Baumgart was delighted with the way Kent had sweetened the Henderson Wright deal at the last moment. On top of this, the accounting firm was hitting all of its numbers and was flourishing under the new CEO Kent had appointed after firing Wright. Baumgart demonstrated his absolute confidence in CBC’s judgment by coinvesting in every one of their deals, moving a further eighteen billion pounds of Tritona’s monies, in addition to the amounts invested via the CBC fund.

In late June, Baumgart asked Kent to join him in Geneva for a general catch-up meeting and dinner. This time, Kent traveled alone. The last thing he wanted was a repeat of the hotel episode. To Tara’s credit, she’d never once mentioned it and had been a complete professional.
Why would she?
Nothing really happened
.

“Great to see you, John,” said Baumgart as he met Kent in Tritona’s reception area. “Where’s Tara? Is she not with you on this trip?”

“Sadly, she wasn’t able to make it, but she looks forward to seeing you when you’re next in the UK,” said Kent, thinking on his feet. Tara never talked about Baumgart, but he didn’t want to disappoint his main investor. Baumgart was besotted with Tara, and it suited Kent to keep him that way.

Baumgart dropped his shoulders. “That is disappointing. Maybe next time.” They walked through to Baumgart’s office. Kulpman was in there, already taking notes.

What the hell do they do with all those notes?
Kent wondered.

He ran through his presentation on CBC’s investment activity. Then he compared the actual financial performance of each acquired company with the projections for each one compiled by CBC when the deal was completed. Every company in the rapidly growing portfolio was trading on or above target. The early indicators were this was going to be a superb fund, vindicating Kent’s judgment that having plenty of investment firepower in a downturn was the route to great returns.

“I’ve been keeping our investors up to date with your performance at CBC. They’re very pleased,” said Baumgart.

“That’s good to hear. We’ve been working hard to put away some great deals for you, but that’s only half the story.”

“How so, John?”

“Our aim now is to keep up the momentum. Having bought well, we plan to be good owners of each company so we make the most of each investment. After all, we want the best exit price when we come to sell them.”

“Actually, that’s one of the reasons I wanted this meeting. You know we manage a number of different assets from these offices, including a small number of direct private equity investments we made before we came into your fund.”

“Yes. We talked before about you making direct investments. But that was before we teamed up.”

“That is not quite correct.”

Kent frowned. “It’s not?”

“Since we made our initial commitment to CBC, we’ve made many more direct investments ourselves as the market conditions have been right.”

“You mean the coinvestments with us, surely?”

“Not exactly. We have done many others, too.”

“You’ve been busy, Dieter.” Kent had no idea Tritona had still been investing in other private equity deals on their own in addition to the monies they’d been putting to work through CBC.
How much money do these people have?

“We see this as the right time to be making new investments while acquisition prices are low.”