Читать книгу This Little Piggy - M.G. Crisci - Страница 8

SUTTON PLACE, MANHATTAN.

The rich and near famous go to their own drummer and make their own rules.

Epstein’s Coffee shop on 53^rd and First Avenue was a madhouse in the morning! Take-out customers stood impatiently in line, while a slovenly Latino guy named Samosa screamed their orders into a steamy kitchen cluttered with waitresses wrestling for pick-ups. The regulars held court at one of thirty tables, situated so close you could hear farts, curses, and whispers.

Franklin Ryman, wearing a pinstriped suit with pointed lapels, sat quietly in a corner reading the Wall Street Journal. Not a big man and certainly no longer young, his jet-black wavy hair and dark eyes gave him an aristocratic presence.

“Good morning, Mr. Ryman,” said Victor with a firm handshake.

“Franklin, please,” said Ryman, rising only slightly. “Mr. Martini, I’ve heard nothing but good things about you.”

“Victor, please.”

A high-protein, high-fat breakfast appeared, complete with muenster cheese omelet, a side order of grease-laden sausages, and a buttered onion-and-garlic bagel. Before Ryman took a bite, he whipped out the obligatory power symbol — a twelve-inch Cuban Macanudo. For the next twenty minutes, he puffed, slurped his coffee, wolfed down his omelet, chomped on the sausages, and told his life story.

Victor noticed the butter drip off Ryman’s bagel onto what appeared to be a very expensive Hermes silk print tie resting on a bold burgundy striped shirt with a heavily starched white collar. Was Ryman aware of these fine points? Did he care?

“I’m just a kid from a middle-class Jewish family on Long Island, Rockville Center, to be precise. Dad was a mid-level accountant in the financial department at Long Island Gas and Electric Company. Guess I inherited his gift of statistical analysis.” Ryman stopped to chuckle at his joke. “Dad graduated with honors from Melville High School at sixteen, a little ahead of the curve,” continued Ryman, believing everybody craved the minutest details of his life. “He was accepted into the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, but my grandparents couldn’t afford the tuition. So, he joined the business world, had a family and kids, and lived unhappily ever after.”

~

“What a coincidence,” responded Victor, poised to perform his famous schmooze routine. “As a kid, I used to spend the summers as a vendor on the beaches in Rockville Center. My dad was a butcher who scraped up a little cash to buy a summer bungalow.”

Ryman didn’t give a shit. His mission was to impress Victor.

“Got a full scholarship to Wharton and graduated with a degree in finance. My first job was a junior analyst on Wall Street with Smith Barney. As I completed various research reports on the company’s buy list, I began to realize many of the so-called ‘hot model’ companies were built primarily through mergers and acquisitions and the elimination of operating duplication, rather than real internal growth.

Wall Street is all about instant gratification. When it comes to money, everybody’s a fucking pig. Right?” Ryman gave Victor no time to answer. “Acquisitions grow revenues and profits instantly and geometrically; stockholders love the action. In my spare time, I began searching for an industry that had not been picked over. The numbers told me to focus on aggregating doctor-owned, private hospitals into a single health care brand.”

“You mean like Kaiser Permanente and Oxford Health?”

“You young guys,” laughed Ryman between a forkful of egg, a sip of coffee, and a cloud of cigar smoke. “They didn’t exist in the Sixties and Seventies. I fucking invented them. There was no Kaiser, no Oxford. I was the guy who completed the first health management IPO — $125 million — exclusively to buy private hospitals, integrate them into one system, and eliminate costly operational duplication. The deal was oversubscribed before it hit the market. I named the company United Medical Systems.”

“I’m not familiar with…”

“Of course, you’re not. It’s long since been renamed Yuma Medical.”

“Like in Yuma Medical, the $15 billion hospital management colossus?”

“One and the same.”

Victor wondered with that kind of track record, why did Ryman want to go back to work?

“The thing was so successful,” continued Ryman, “it wasn’t long before competitive hospital networks sprang up. The Street’s pea-brain analysts thought it would be a problem. You know, cut market share and stuff. But I saw it as another $10 billion opportunity. I created a venture capital fund that lent money to my competitors.”

“Why the hell do that?” asked Victor, chewing on a greasy toasted sesame-garlic bagel.

“You sound like the dickheads on The Street! Would you rather have 25 percent of a $50 billion market or 60 percent of a $10 billion market? Within two years, United Medical was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and my capital fund, Seminal Investors, was listed on the American Stock Exchange. I was living the goddamn life of Riley. Everything was moving so fast. I wasn’t even thirty, and I had more money than I knew what to do with.”

Victor took a sip of coffee and a bite of his bagel. Franklin distributed more cigar ashes as his life spilled across the table.

“In the middle of all this, I had another flash of pure genius! Why not execute my private hospital acquisition strategy in Europe? If McCann’s Hamburgers can export fast food to Europe, why can’t I export a successful financial model? I created Crystal Bond Medical. It turned out I couldn’t execute the same strategy because hospitals were inextricably linked to socialized medicine. So, I decided to consolidate the medical instrument industry. It was like taking candy from a baby! We got listed on the London Exchange in less than fourteen months. The fucking money just kept pouring in. Had two kick-ass 737s, one for me, one for my best friends, my furry Newfoundlands Buzz and Wilfred,” said Ryman, raising his voice, oblivious that anybody else was in the restaurant or even at his table.

“The three of us just went back and forth between the parties and the drug binges. I had more women than I could accommodate. They were all so easy. Brits, Scandinavians, whatever.”

Ryman stared emotionless. “I not only fell in love with London, I somehow fell in love with Samantha Brighton, the femme fatale of Knightsbridge. I chased her all over Europe. Not only didn’t she marry me, but she unceremoniously dumped me – for a fucking other woman! There I was, one of the world’s most eligible bachelors, publicly humiliated. I couldn’t handle it. Took some time off the merry-go-round.”

Victor realized Ryman had a certain “dark side” charisma. Wall Street was in turmoil over the sub-prime mortgage mess, tight credit, and poorly run companies begging for multi-billion-dollar federal handouts. Ryman had convinced himself that none of that mattered. “I see reservation written all over your face. You’re wondering, where the hell did all the money go?”

As they continued to talk, Ryman sensed Martini was what he needed he – a greedy little pig, wrapped in a polished corporate veneer. A man who was willing to accept some version of the truth.

“It all ended abruptly one night at a party in my Malibu beach house. I just fell off the edge of the earth for what seemed like an eternity. Nobody knew where the hell I was, including me. My financial empire crumbled. The rest was stolen by my associates or foreclosed by the banks. When I regained my sanity, everything and everybody was gone. I’ve spent the last twelve months sobering up, getting physically fit, and regaining my mental edge. No alcohol, no drugs.”

“Are you broke?” asked Victor.

“Let’s just say I want to get it all back, plus some.”

“Johnny said you had a new wealth-building idea.”

“Yeah, sorry about that Victor, revisiting the skeletons in my closet got me off track.”

Ryman, a master closer, knew he had Martini’s undivided attention. “I’ve invested a half-million in researching and developing an untapped business opportunity,” declared Ryman, flicking his cigar. “I’ve also spent serious time with a number of my advisors. The unanimous consensus? This scheme can make the team and me super-rich.

“Johnny’s told me a lot about you. Let me be perfectly blunt. I need someone with the right corporate pedigree and the right age to help me promote the project, raise the capital, make the acquisitions, and run the companies. You interested?”

Victor leaned back, I’ve known this guy for a half-hour. I haven’t a clue what the hell the business is about, and he’s asking me to abandon twelve years of scratching and clawing up the ladder at A&J from the goddamn mailroom.

“Mr. Ryman, it’s hard to answer that question. You haven’t told me what the business is.”

“Jesus, I’m sorry, I just assumed Johnny filled you in. He managed all the research. My new business concept is simplicity itself. We’re going to legitimize the barter trading industry. By the way, the name is Franklin, not Mr. Ryman,” he smiled.

“Barter is not my wheelhouse. Is there much of a demand?”

“Are you kidding?” retorted Franklin enthusiastically. “People have been bartering goods for centuries, but it’s never evolved into an organized corporate enterprise. My company will be the first to consolidate all the critical functions of re-marketing excess consumer products under one roof, thereby becoming the market leader over-night.”

“Seems a little grandiose for a start-up in this day and age of corporate consolidations.”

“Nonsense,” replied Ryman curtly and confidently. “The Street is searching for innovative companies that can generate stable revenues and real profits. They’ve had it with smoke and mirror tech opportunities and accounting gimmicks. I plan to acquire and consolidate successful private barter companies with attractive operating histories through a series of public financings.”

“Are there enough of these companies to consolidate.”

“My research says that barter is a highly fragmented $20 billion industry populated by hundreds of street-savvy mom-and-pop entrepreneurs who specialize in one type of inventory or one channel of distribution. Some buy thee excess inventories for cash. Some buy under a barter arrangement, and some buy for a little of both. But nobody does it all. We will be the first public company of it’s kind.”

“Isn’t the government forcing the investment banking industry to batten down the hatches on highly speculative public financings?” asked Martini.

“I’m not talking about traditional a Wall Street capital raise. Been there, done that. I’m talking about raising capital through entrepreneurial penny stockbrokers.

“I thought Wall Street was entrepreneurial,” replied Victor, sounding like the neophyte he was.

“Hardly,” responded Ryman arrogantly, taking another puff and blowing a ring of smoke in the air. “Despite all the SEC saber-rattling and government oversight, they've practically ignored the world of penny stocks. The corporate bluebloods make like the world doesn't exist. They call it ‘the dark side of The Street.’ In reality, smart, savvy people raise tens of millions of dollars every day in this niche. Best of all, the rules are fungible; it's like the wild wild west of investment capital.”

Ryman sensed Victor was intrigued. He kept pouring it on, partially out of ego, partially out of need. “That’s the beauty of my strategy; all we need to do is make it sound sexy. As you well know, marketing is all packaging. Once we become America’s great 'whisper stock,' mainstream money will line up at the door.”

“I got it, but don’t quite get it,” said Victor honestly.

Ryman realized Victor was just what the doctor ordered – a naive, blue-chip marketing tenderfoot who could make his prospectus look and sound great.

~

“Here’s how it works. First, we use the public’s money to acquire fifteen or twenty of these niche companies. Then we eliminate redundant functions to add value. The restated earnings will show an income stream that capitalizes in the hundreds of millions. The stock price will skyrocket, investors will realize a significant return, and we’ll both be wealthy beyond our wildest dreams. Me for the second time, you for the first. So are you in??”

Martini wanted to do his own due diligence. “Franklin, what makes a barter company successful? Do they have management continuity? How do they fit together strategically?”

“Jesus, Victor, please, let’s not get bogged down in bullshit details. Business is not about business; it’s about money. If you can’t get filthy rich on someone else’s money, why bother?” Ryman believed deep down everyone was a greedy pig. And he knew how to feed that animal.

“How much do you think I can make,” asked Martini.

“Fifty, maybe a hundred million dollars in three years. Depends.”

The estimates blew Victor away. The sounded too good to be true. “Franklin, I’ve got to be blunt. The numbers are tantalizing, but the business and the financing sound like bullshit!”

Ryman was infuriated. “Bullshit! My plan is fucking brilliant!. You sound like my tight-ass United Medical nay-sayers.”

~

“I need some time to think about it, talk to my wife,” said Martini, sipping his now cold coffee. “I’ve got a great career with a first-class organization. Been there twelve years. I just can’t...”

“Oh, I get it. You want to check me out. Go ahead. You’ll find everything I told you is true. How much time do you need?”

“A few days.”

Ryman went for the close. “That’s fine, but no bullshit stringing me along; I’ve got to get on with my plan. If not with you, then somebody else. Do we understand each other?” Ryman was good. Very good.

Martini was already leaning. “By the way, Franklin, does your new creation have a name?”

“Yeah. International Trade Incorporated. The stock symbol is ITI. It’s easy to remember and sounds like a subsidiary of AT&T.”

The men shook hands, promising to meet again soon. Ryman noticed a large butter stain on Martini’s tie. “Victor, don’t know if you noticed, but I have a bad habit of talking and eating at the same time. I wind up tossing more butter-stained $125 ties in the garbage.”

Martini thought Ryman’s comment was an odd way to end their meeting.

Ryman smiled and pointed at Martini’s butter-stained tie. “Looks like we might be business and etiquette partners. ”I’d suggest a new tie for our next meeting.”