The Deal
Authors: Tony Drury
Table of Contents
The Deal
by
Tony Drury
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental. Copyright © 2012 Tony Drury. Published By City Fiction.
ISBN: 978-0957201736
Book Description
The pressure is on for corporate financier Oliver Chatham. As the City languishes in recession, he is under contract to raise two million pounds for a publishing company.
But it’s not only money at stake – if he is successful, Amanda Wavering, woman of his dreams and sister of the publishing house’s chief executive, will consummate their relationship; if he fails, no deal.
As if this wasn’t challenge enough, Oliver’s finance house becomes caught up in a battle of ferocious egos, as new bloods battle with the old guard for the future of the business. While old school boss Charles Harriman fights his own demons and the terrifying kidnap of his child, fearless corporate researcher Sara Flemming takes her reputation – and her life – right to the edge in her bid to expose the dodgy dealings of a Russian mafioso.
Will Oliver get what he bargained for – or will he learn the hard way that you should never mix sex and the City?
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“...she is my mistress and my queen. Her beauty transcends all the united charms of her whole sex; even those chimerical perfections, which the hyperbolical imaginations of poets in love have assigned to their mistresses, cease to be incredible descriptions when applied to her, in whom all those miraculous endowments are most divinely centred. The curling locks of her bright flowing hair are purest gold; her smooth forehead the Elysian Plain; her brows are two celestial bows; her eyes two glorious suns; her cheeks two beds of roses; her lips are coral; her teeth are pearl; her neck is alabaster; her breasts marble; her hands ivory; and snow would lose its whiteness near her bosom. Then, for the parts that modesty has veiled, my imagination, not to wrong them, chooses to lose itself in silent admiration; for nature boasts nothing that may give an idea of their incomparable worth.”
Don Quixote by Cervantes
PART ONE
The terms
Chapter One
Ascent… yes, ascent, he pondered, as he quietly replayed the melody in his mind.
Oliver Chatham was sitting in the Polo Bar of The Westbury hotel
,
waiting for his companion to bring their drinks. Amanda Wavering had become impatient with the non-arrival of the somewhat flustered waitress and had gone over to the counter to place her order.
The music he was trying to recall had started with a strong piano introduction. Da- (long) de- (short) da- (long) which was repeated, da-de-da, before being joined by the strings of the orchestra, da-de-da, da-de-da, and then up an octave, repeating da-de-da several times. There was then an ascending piano and strings interplay, octave by octave, and crescendoing as the trumpets joined in. The violins then came in again, da-de-da, da-de-da, and the highest notes were reached with a crash of drums – dum! dum! dum! dum!
He looked over to where Amanda was waiting for their drinks.
“And mountains,” he added under his breath. “The composer. Russian. He has to be Russian.”
He sat back and listened to the piped music being played in the reception and bar areas of The Westbury. Was it the same song?
Less than an hour earlier, he and Amanda had left the offices of her brother’s publishing business, City Fiction, situated in the Royal Exchange, opposite the Bank of England, and had taken the Central Line from Bank, in the heart of the City of London, and travelled west to Oxford Street. From there, they had strolled down Regent Street, before turning right into Conduit Street. Ten minutes in the late afternoon pedestrian traffic. The Americans were back in town, many having stayed on after the royal wedding and the presidential visit, and there were lots of Chinese and other East Asian visitors, too. A bustling, cosmopolitan crowd.
He’d first heard this composition one month earlier, when driving in Holborn near to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. It was stirring and nationalistic. He’d turned up the volume so that he could make a note of the composer and the title of the piece. He usually tuned in to Classic FM but on this occasion had pressed the wrong button and found a foreign station.
As the music had stopped, a taxi driver and a cyclist – who was riding one of the London Mayor’s Barclays-sponsored hire scheme bikes – decided to dispute the right-of-way. The driver had resorted to his cab horn and the rider, who had paid her £3.00 registration fee and £1.00 for using the bike for twenty-four hours, delivered a fearful lashing of obscenities. Unsurprisingly, her attention had wavered and she’d crashed into a fresh fruit stall. Boxes of oranges, apples, peaches, grapes and plums had cascaded into the road. As the market trader had gone to help her, his foot slipped on the spilt fruit, and down he went.
Oliver had tried, with difficulty, to manoeuvre his car around the debris, while watching the girl, whose skirt had risen high up around her waist, and, at the same time, to hear the answer to the question he was asking of the DJ from the long wave radio station.
He had caught “ascent...” – but had he also heard the word “mountain”? Something registered “mountain” but it wasn’t the actual word “mountain”. The composer. Who was the composer?
The cyclist had struggled up and was straightening her clothing, only to find that she’d torn her blouse. She’d cursed again.
“Russian,” Oliver had cried under his breath. “It sounded Russian.”
A police motor cyclist had then arrived on the scene only to watch the taxi driver accelerate away. Oliver had put his car back into gear and left the officer taking notes from the girl, who had been rather angry.
He glanced around the Polo Bar and his eyes settled on Amanda, who was still waiting for their drinks at the counter.
Three movements, he thought. One theme repeated twice, or was it just once? He’d looked at his watch as he drove away from the cycle accident and estimated a playing time of around eight minutes. It comprised piano and orchestra. A mini-concerto, he’d decided. He wanted to hear it again and play it in the tranquillity of his flat. He was determined to identify the composer and its title.
“Why don’t you just pour it over your cornflakes?”
Lucy Harriman almost spat out the words as she watched her husband’s hand hover with a bottle of vodka over an empty glass.
Charles Harriman looked at Scarlett, aged nine, Lily, who was almost seven, and Tabitha, now four years old. All three daughters continued eating their breakfast, although Scarlett was edging closer to her mother.
Their father was chief executive at White, Harriman and Boyle. Mr White had retired several years earlier, as the increasing regulatory pressures being applied by the Financial Services Authority (universally known as the FSA) persuaded him that corporate finance work was best left to younger men.
Charles had assumed control only to find that Bryan White had been his mentor and protector. After more than two years in office he’d begun to react to the business pressures with an ever increasing dependency on alcohol. He’d always controlled the glasses of wine at lunchtime and was popular with his clients, who enjoyed his hospitality. But before too long there were drinks after work, which he justified as staff liaison duties. A pint of strong lager before catching the tube train west to Ealing – where he was usually met by Lucy and his daughters – became two pints and perhaps a whisky to complete the day’s work. He’d begun to rely on a glass of spirits in the evening about a year earlier. Lucy, however, hadn’t seen him with a vodka bottle at the breakfast table until that morning.
They had already recognised that he had an alcoholic dependency and had agreed to fight the problem together. She’d arranged for Charles to see a consultant at the Priory Grange clinic in Hemel Hempstead. She wanted the visit to be away from West London to ensure there was no possible leak in their gossipy community. Lucy didn’t know whether the two-hour session had been constructive.
“He was efficient,” Charles had told her when they’d discussed his appointment the previous evening. “He was keen to tell me about the people he’d helped. But he had difficulty understanding my work. I thought I’d explained things pretty well, but he seemed unable to comprehend that my difficulty is how our deals are structured.”
Lucy said that she’d experienced the same problem in trying to understand his daily work. She asked her husband to take her through the issues again, although she was really motivated by her wish to keep him talking. Of course the difficulty wasn’t with his work, but with his reliance on alcohol. But it was late into the evening and she was becoming increasingly concerned by his slurred speech and nervous mannerisms.
“It’s the system, Lucy,” Charles had explained after drinking some more wine. The flood gates opened. He’d detailed the process, which usually involved one of White, Harriman and Boyle’s City contacts (often a law firm or an accounting practice) introducing a potential client. “They always want to raise money now or later.” He’d slammed his hand on the table. “It’s always about raising money.”
He’d paused before going on. “We’re part of the capital markets. Which are so called because they’re a mechanism by which the directors of companies can offer shares – which we call capital or equity – in their company to outside investors. These might be financial institutions or private individuals.”
“Name me a financial institution,” she’d asked as she sipped her cup of coffee.
“A pension fund,” he’d responded. “They invest their savers’ contributions to try and increase the value of their clients’ savings with them.”
He’d stopped and opened another bottle of wine. He’d poured them both glasses of chardonnay, not noticing that Lucy’s first glass was now under her chair. He’d continued as though he had forgotten the answer he had given to Lucy’s question.
“There are many funds which are seeking a return on the money entrusted to them by their clients or private individuals. There are many funds,” he’d repeated, “and a variety of legal structures. Private investors can range from retired army officers to speculators looking for above average returns.”
Lucy was lost again, but had wanted him to continue without further interruption.
“Once the corporate finance house has decided it can and will act for a client, and terms are agreed, there will be a four to six month period during which a share promotion document is prepared. At this point the fund-raising can begin. It is exhausting, Lucy, and can be an emotional exercise for the directors of the client company. Sometimes it involves fifty or sixty presentations to individual fund managers.”
“What’s so emotional about it?” Lucy had thought to herself, but although now tiring, she’d still wanted him to continue talking.
“If, and when, the money is raised, and this, Lucy, is quite a complicated process, finally the company receives bank transferred funds net of the costs. On a fund-raising of ten million pounds, the costs could be as much as one point two million pounds.”
“How much, Charles?!” she’d exclaimed, but he hadn’t answered. He’d carried on as though he hadn’t heard her.
“We can earn around three to four hundred thousand pounds if the deal is completed. But Lucy, if the transaction fails to raise the funds and collapses before the completion of the objectives agreed with the client, the advisers will receive abort fees. These are much reduced non-completion amounts, or no fees at all.” He’d paused. “Imagine that, Lucy. No fees after all that fucking work!”