week before to be replaced by a tattooed operative with an earring from an outside security firm who looked as if his previous assignment had been in Wormwood Scrubs rather than Threadneedle Street.
The third floor, my floor, had also changed in the last year. The Project Finance Department was now four desks tacked on to the end of a larger entity known as Specialized Finance. Teams of specialists in the funding of ships, aircraft, films, local government, and oil and gas were grouped together in an uneasy alliance. There had been a time when Gurney Kroheim had excelled in all these fields. But since the merger most of the best people had left to be replaced not by Germans, but by either outside hires or people from the second-tier US investment bank that Leipziger had swallowed a few months after Gurney Kroheim. My own group, Project Finance, had consisted of ten people. The best six had gone, leaving my nice but ineffective boss, Giles, in charge of a rump of three of us. We hadn’t closed a deal in six months.
I powered up my computer and, with my cup of coffee already drunk, got down to work. Work was a huge spreadsheet, a computer model of all the flows of gas, steam, electricity and money in and out of a proposed electric cogeneration plant in Colombia. It was a gigantic beast, literally thousands of numbers all linked together that attempted to recreate all the variables involved in building,financing and operating the plant. I had started the model on my laptop computer six months before when Giles and I had visited the Swiss offices of the firm that was bidding to construct the plant. The thing had grown since then; grown, but still remained under my control. If you wanted to change the dollar–peso exchange rate in 2002, I could do it. Oil prices falling in 2005? No problem. Borrowing in fixed-rate Swiss francs rather than floating-rate dollars? Give me a minute and I’ll print off six pages analysing the results.
Working on a computer model like that for as long as I had, I had developed a good feel for the key variables of the project: those risks that mattered and those that didn’t. Giles and I had come up with what we thought was an ingenious financial structure that would allow our client to put in the lowest bid for the contract.
Giles came in, pink shirt, loud tie and sharp pinstriped suit beneath a dull brain.
‘Morning,’ I said.
‘Oh, morning, David,’ he said nervously.
I looked up sharply. Bosses shouldn’t be nervous, certainly not at eight-thirty in the morning.
His eyes dodged mine and moved to his own computer.
‘Giles?’
‘Yes?’
‘What’s up?’
Giles looked at me, looked backed at his computer, realized there was no refuge there, and let his shoulders sag.
‘Giles?’
‘They’ve pulled their bid.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean the Swiss have pulled their bid. They are convinced they won’t win. Apparently the Americans have the best local partners, and our boys have lost confidence in their own people. You know what Colombia’s like.’
‘No! I don’t believe it.’ I glanced at my spreadsheet. At the box-files stacked three feet high and two feet wide beside my desk. ‘So we just drop it?’
‘I’m afraid so, David. You know how it is. We only get paid if we back a winner.’
‘So I was right. Remember when we first saw them in Basel? I told you they were flaky then. They never were serious about making a bid.’
‘We don’t know that. Look, I know you’ve done a lot of work on this, but you have to get used to these things not coming off.’
‘Oh, I’m getting used to it all right. This is, what, the fifth in a row?’
Giles winced. ‘It will give us a chance to look at that sewage project in Malaysia. We can go to Dusseldorf on Friday and pin the deal down.’
‘Pin the deal down! Face it, Giles, you’ve never pinned a deal down.’
I had gone too far. I was right, of course, but because I was right I shouldn’t have said it.
The third floor, my floor, had also changed in the last year. The Project Finance Department was now four desks tacked on to the end of a larger entity known as Specialized Finance. Teams of specialists in the funding of ships, aircraft, films, local government, and oil and gas were grouped together in an uneasy alliance. There had been a time when Gurney Kroheim had excelled in all these fields. But since the merger most of the best people had left to be replaced not by Germans, but by either outside hires or people from the second-tier US investment bank that Leipziger had swallowed a few months after Gurney Kroheim. My own group, Project Finance, had consisted of ten people. The best six had gone, leaving my nice but ineffective boss, Giles, in charge of a rump of three of us. We hadn’t closed a deal in six months.
I powered up my computer and, with my cup of coffee already drunk, got down to work. Work was a huge spreadsheet, a computer model of all the flows of gas, steam, electricity and money in and out of a proposed electric cogeneration plant in Colombia. It was a gigantic beast, literally thousands of numbers all linked together that attempted to recreate all the variables involved in building,financing and operating the plant. I had started the model on my laptop computer six months before when Giles and I had visited the Swiss offices of the firm that was bidding to construct the plant. The thing had grown since then; grown, but still remained under my control. If you wanted to change the dollar–peso exchange rate in 2002, I could do it. Oil prices falling in 2005? No problem. Borrowing in fixed-rate Swiss francs rather than floating-rate dollars? Give me a minute and I’ll print off six pages analysing the results.
Working on a computer model like that for as long as I had, I had developed a good feel for the key variables of the project: those risks that mattered and those that didn’t. Giles and I had come up with what we thought was an ingenious financial structure that would allow our client to put in the lowest bid for the contract.
Giles came in, pink shirt, loud tie and sharp pinstriped suit beneath a dull brain.
‘Morning,’ I said.
‘Oh, morning, David,’ he said nervously.
I looked up sharply. Bosses shouldn’t be nervous, certainly not at eight-thirty in the morning.
His eyes dodged mine and moved to his own computer.
‘Giles?’
‘Yes?’
‘What’s up?’
Giles looked at me, looked backed at his computer, realized there was no refuge there, and let his shoulders sag.
‘Giles?’
‘They’ve pulled their bid.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean the Swiss have pulled their bid. They are convinced they won’t win. Apparently the Americans have the best local partners, and our boys have lost confidence in their own people. You know what Colombia’s like.’
‘No! I don’t believe it.’ I glanced at my spreadsheet. At the box-files stacked three feet high and two feet wide beside my desk. ‘So we just drop it?’
‘I’m afraid so, David. You know how it is. We only get paid if we back a winner.’
‘So I was right. Remember when we first saw them in Basel? I told you they were flaky then. They never were serious about making a bid.’
‘We don’t know that. Look, I know you’ve done a lot of work on this, but you have to get used to these things not coming off.’
‘Oh, I’m getting used to it all right. This is, what, the fifth in a row?’
Giles winced. ‘It will give us a chance to look at that sewage project in Malaysia. We can go to Dusseldorf on Friday and pin the deal down.’
‘Pin the deal down! Face it, Giles, you’ve never pinned a deal down.’
I had gone too far. I was right, of course, but because I was right I shouldn’t have said it.
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