Lise, his secretary, looked at her shoes. Even Bob Massey, not usually the shrinking-violet type, developed a sudden, burning interest in his cuticles. Standing next to Dan Peters, like Oliver Hardy to Peters’ tall, lean Stan Laurel, Bob looked positively embarrassed.
Dan Peters was the first to speak. ‘We’ve been trying to get hold of you. All day. Where were you?’
‘What do you mean, where was I?’ said Jackson, irritated. ‘I was on a plane, as you well know.’
‘We tried you first thing this morning, hours before your flight. And yesterday.’
‘Jesus, Dan, what is this, the inquisition?’ snapped Jackson, defensive because he knew he was in the wrong. ‘I was in meetings half way up a fucking mountain, OK? No phone reception.’ From the look on Peters’ face, the lie sounded as unconvincing to him as at did to Jackson. Deciding that attack was probably the best form of defence, Jackson squared his shoulders belligerently. ‘Now perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me what the hell’s going on?’
At that moment an ashen-faced Lucius Monroe and most of the rest of the board filed in. Suddenly Jackson’s palatial corner office was starting to feel like a sardine can.
‘It’s Sasha Miller,’ said Lucius.
Jackson felt his heart tighten. ‘Of course it is. Don’t tell me. She’s gone to one of our competitors and taken a bunch of the retail group with her? I hate to say “ I told you so ” .’ He looked at the shifty glances being exchanged between his fellow board members. ‘What? It’s worse than that? Don’t tell me she’s gotten McKinley to go with her?’
‘No,’ said Lucius cautiously. ‘Wrexall retains eighty-five per cent ownership in the McKinley partnership. That was part of the deal.’
Jackson’s eyes narrowed. ‘What deal?’
‘She left us with no choice,’ said Bob Massey. ‘It’s an MBO.’
‘A management buyout? Of what?’
‘Of the entire retail division.’
Jackson laughed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! That’s the core of our business. It has been for almost a century.’
‘They raised twenty per cent of the money themselves,’ said Bob. ‘McKinley fronted the rest. Evidently Sasha’s become very tight with Joe Foman, their CEO. Very tight indeed.’
Jackson paused, trying to process this information. He knew Joe Foman socially, though not well. An aging roué, once extremely handsome but now a paunchy caricature of his young self, complete with slicked-back, receding hair and open-necked, wing-collar shirts, the idea of Joe Foman and Sasha being ‘tight’ made Jackson physically sick. Forcing it out of his mind, he turned back to business.
‘It doesn’t matter. So Sasha found the money and enough willing bodies to go with her. So what? She can’t effect a buyout without unanimous board consent.’ The shoe shuffling and awkward glances intensified.
‘It’s like Bob said,’ muttered Lucius Monroe weakly. ‘We had no choice. If we didn’t agree to the deal, McKinley would have nixed the joint venture altogether. This way we get eighty-five per cent of the biggest transaction in our history. As opposed zero per cent of nothing.’
‘And for what?’ added Bob Massey. ‘We’d still have lost the heart of our retail division. Sasha had a back-up offer from Jones Lang LaSalle and another from CB Richard Ellis Group, to take the team in whole or in part. They were out the door, Jackson.’
Jackson couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘So? So what if they were out the door? That’s human capital. It’s renewable! We could have rehired, we could have recruited. Instead you traded the living, beating heart of this company for a stake – a stake – in one deal! You must be out of your minds, all of you. Where’s your backbone? Where are your fucking balls?’ He waved an accusing arm around the room. ‘Well, it’s not going to happen. You know the statutes better than anyone.’ He turned to look at Bob Massey, who blushed. ‘I think you’ll find they’re very clear on this point. The board decision on any MBO must be unanimous and it must include the family vote. The family vote is me. And I vote no. Now where the hell is Lottie Grainger? I need to make a statement to those locusts outside, come to feast on Wrexall’s remains.’
‘It’s too late for that, Jackson,’ Dan Peters said stiffly. Dan had expected Jackson to take the news badly. They all had. But he for one was getting tired of being lectured by a long-haired upstart who couldn’t keep it in his pants. If Jackson felt so damn strongly about the company’s wellbeing, he shouldn’t have spent the last three days screwing his way around a ski resort like a dog in heat. ‘No phone reception’ my ass. Sasha Miller had put them in a unique position, both dangerous and potentially profitable. Yes, there were risks involved, on all sides. That was business. But the board had acted in Wrexall Dupree’s best interests, and that was all there was to it.
‘The deal was already signed, an hour ago. The board’s decision was unanimous. And we did secure the family vote.’
‘That’s impossible!’
‘Not at all. In the light of your absence and inability to be contacted, we put the vote to the next most senior family member with significant shareholdings, as we are legally entitled to do. Sasha Miller met with that senior family member this morning, explaining in full the relative advantages to Wrexall Dupree of this deal. After that meeting, he added his signature to our eleven. The deal is done. We believe it is a good deal. You may disagree, but the decision is nonetheless irrevocable.’
‘Who added his signature?’ Jackson’s voice was barely a whisper. ‘Who did Sasha go and visit, and bamboozle, and convince to sign in my name?’
With a small smile of satisfaction, Dan Peters said, ‘It was Walker Dupree, Jackson. Your father.’
Sasha lay back on her bed, elated but exhausted. The last five days had been a whirlwind. She still had to pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. Have I really just bought out Wrexall’s retail business? Am I really going to be running it as my own company?
She’d been fielding the same questions from the media all afternoon. Her phone hadn’t stopped ringing: CNN, MSNBC’s Squawk Box, Forbes magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and photographers were camped outside her luxurious Upper East Side apartment building. (She had finally allowed herself to move out of her pokey Brooklyn flat when Georgia, her old friend from St Michael’s days, had flown out to stay and complained that the place was little better than a student squat.) The press all wanted to know just how such a young, not to mention female, Wrexall executive had managed to convince the board to sell out of one of their most profitable businesses. And of course, Sasha answered all their questions with the same, measured, poised responses: She hadn’t ‘outman oeuvred’ anyone. This was a great deal for Wrexall Dupree, as well as for McKinley and the new group, tentatively christened Ceres (after the small but fertile breakaway planet between Mars and Jupiter, a nod to Sasha’s physics past). All sides felt that the time was ripe for a change, etc., etc.
In reality, Sasha had been overtaken by events almost as much as everybody else. Sure, she’d fantasized about one day running her own firm. But that was all it was, a fantasy. It was only as the McKinley deal drew to a close and Joe Foman, desperate to prolong his daily contact with Sasha, had started floating the idea of backing her, that she began to see the possibilities. Initially, Joe was suggesting that his private equity firm, Cosmos, fund a brand-new, start-up company with Sasha at the helm. As appealing as the idea was to Sasha’s ego, it was far too high risk. Most start-ups sank without trace, however well managed they were; it was the law of the jungle. No, the ideal was a buyout, taking an established business with clients and a revenue stream and breaking it off from its parent. The problem was, of course, that parent companies tended