LITMIR.BIZ

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helping a Texan oil company, Tominto Oil, buy a Scottish one. The Scottish one, Aberdeen Drilling, was being auctioned off by its parent company, which was currently talking to four serious bidders, including Tominto. Zack and Sarah and the two men from Tominto Oil were in the Aberdeen Drilling data room: the room which held every important document to do with the company. This was the Aberdeen Drilling engine, and the bonnet was up. Each bidder was allowed one week to look. They were allowed to read everything, take as many notes as they wanted, but they were allowed to copy nothing.

      At the end of the week the bonnet would be brought down again and Tominto and Coburg’s would need to go away, discuss what they’d seen, and work out a price they’d be prepared to offer. If their bid was the highest of the four submitted, they’d sign a contract, buy the company, and drive it off into a happy, and hopefully breakdown-free, future. If their bid was one of the three lowest, the seller would shake his head, say so sorry, and leave them to watch all their work go swirling down the plughole. The Tominto people would go back to running their company and the Coburg’s corporate financiers would go chasing the next deal.

      And what if the data room wasn’t complete? What if, amongst the myriad documents – management accounts, tax filings, statutory accounts, environmental reports, supply contracts, customer analyses, and a thousand other things – what if one or two nasty surprises were carefully left out, so that the poor old buyers didn’t have a clue? Well, it’s like the better end of the car trade. When you buy a company, you sign a contract which gives you a limited warranty. The warranty protects against any nasty surprises which you haven’t been told about. If something should have been in the data room and wasn’t, and it ends up costing you money, then you can go to the seller and demand a refund.

      So sellers have a different strategy. Sellers put everything into the data room. Everything. They fill it as full as they possibly can. If they have time bombs, they bury them. They bury them under a mountain of detail so dull, that Buddha himself would kick the walls and scream. Every time Zack and Sarah were tempted to skip a page, they were stopped sharply by the thought that as they flicked forward they might miss it. The time bomb. The thing they were in the data room to find.

      There were the two guys from Tominto Oil as well, but they weren’t the experts. In its forty-year life, Tominto Oil had purchased only about five companies worth more than a few million dollars. Coburg’s closed more deals than that every two or three months. The guys from Tominto are like you looking under the bonnet. ‘The thingamajig looks dirty,’ you say. ‘Is that doodah meant to have that bend in it?’ Stand back, sucker. Get out of the light and let the experts look.

      Zack and Sarah went back to their files. Sarah was tapping notes into a portable computer. Zack had a laptop too but he wasn’t using it, he was using something more powerful: his memory. Since early boyhood, Zack had developed a pretty much photographic memory. He could look at a page, take it in, then just move on, knowing that he could bring it back to mind as clearly as if he had it in front of him. They weren’t allowed to copy stuff, but Zack didn’t need to. He was photographing it.

      The silence settled again: Sarah tapping keys, both of them turning pages, looking for trouble, feeling strange in each other’s presence. Page, after page, after page.

      6

      Terminal 4 at Heathrow is the most exciting of them all. Long-haul destinations flick up on departure screens like locations in a Bond movie. African chiefs in full tribal regalia rub shoulders and crash trolleys with neat Japanese businessmen. Arabs travelling with enough baggage to fill a jeep mix with students holding a single battered rucksack and a passport crammed with visas. This is a true melting pot, the world in chaos. It is exhilarating.

      But amidst the confusion, a silent but complete apartheid rules. Economy travellers to the left. Business travellers to the right. And to the very far right, in their own quiet corner, first class and Concorde passengers are massaged gently through the inconvenience of having to walk to the plane at all. In that land of whispers, the rich, the famous and the powerful disappear down their own gangways, flattered, pampered and attended every step of the way.

      Matthew was standing in the economy queue, and he wasn’t enjoying it.

      In the days when his father had paid for his airline tickets, Matthew had usually travelled business class, even first class if he could stand the inevitable argument. Today, with an economy ticket, Matthew gazed at the long queue stretching ahead of him and looked again at his watch. It was now only fifty minutes to takeoff and the queue seemed to be stuck. Only the rear view of a particularly attractive French girl kept him from losing his temper altogether. She was casually dressed in jeans and a crisp white cotton shirt, but the designer look was unmistakable and her figure was a pleasure to behold. She pushed a single large suitcase and carried a soft white leather bag on her shoulder. Matthew wanted to see her face but was half afraid that if she turned her head she would disappoint him. Right now, she looked perfect.

      Just then the queue which had been stuck broke into a confusion at the far end by the check-in desk. The neat line of people dissolved into a scrum. Like everybody else, Matthew pushed forward to see what was happening.

      The plane due to leave for New York at six that evening had developed some mechanical failure. They had found a replacement, but the replacement was a smaller 767, instead of the scheduled jumbo. The remaining passengers would not be able to travel that night. All passengers would be given a choice of accommodation at a nearby airport hotel or cash to allow them to travel home. All passengers would be able to travel out first thing the next day on a plane arranged especially for them. British Airways apologised profusely for any inconvenience caused. Passengers should contact the ground staff if they required help.

      Matthew was apoplectic. He was flying to New York to join Madison’s notoriously tough training programme, which started tomorrow. On the first morning, the bank’s president was to give an introductory talk famous for its brevity. ‘Take a good look at the students on either side of you,’ he was reputed to say. ‘Chances are that by the end of the programme, one of those students, or you, will have flunked the course. And there is no second chance, so do your best. And remember: in times to come, your fellow students may be your friends and colleagues. Right now they are also your competitors.’

      It wouldn’t be his fault if he were late. Brian McAllister had kept him in over the weekend on some dumb project that needed finishing and this was the last flight to get him there on time. Because he was a trainee, he had to fly economy, a saving which now threatened to tip him off the flight. But Madison wanted results not hard-luck stories, and Matthew looked set to be the first student not even to arrive on the first day.

      ‘Merde!’

      The thought was Matthew’s, but the words came from elsewhere. It was the French girl in the white shirt. Her face was no disappointment at all. Long, dark brown hair fell smoothly from a centre parting, beautifully framing her oval face. She had clear fair skin, a slight pink blush, high cheekbones. She looked like a madonna, travelling light. Though obviously annoyed, she remained entirely composed. She was perfect, thought Matthew, absolutely perfect. Just for a moment the flight was forgotten.

      The French girl wasn’t really talking to anyone, just announcing her feelings, but Matthew felt he might as well respond.

      ‘Unbelievable, isn’t it?’ he said, brilliantly.

      ‘Terrible. I need to be in New York tonight. I have changed my booking twice already.’

      ‘Me too. Let’s see if we can get any joy here,’ said Matthew, throwing his weight into the mêlée ahead.

      ‘I don’t think you will have any fun there. Not unless you have something which the fifty people ahead of you don’t have. Come.’

      She turned and set off rightwards to the serene world of business class. Matthew hesitated a moment, then followed. When he caught up with her a few yards from the check-in counter, she was in tears and her hands twisted round her handkerchief in agitation. He hurried to keep alongside her. At the desk she threw down her passport and her ticket. Between sobs she gasped,

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