we had walked through the door did she say, 'Bastard, bastard, bastard' with a venom that was not com- pletely out of character. She flung herself into her dark green leather chair and put her feet on her desk, knocking the blotter to one side. 'Bastard, bastard, bastard.'
There were any number of reasons why Tony could be having a quiet tete-a-tete with our client: a shared interest in good food was one, a chance meeting was another, but they were both about as likely as scoring a hole in one on the Old Course at St Andrews by teeing off at Bearsden Golf Club.
If it had been above board and Tony was offering to sell his stake or switch his allegiance then Shona and I would be involved, so what was going on was obviously not the sort of behaviour likely to win Brownie points from the Takeover Panel.
The reason why the two so-called adversaries were dining together hod flashed into our minds at the same moment -our bid was nothing more than a red herring to boost the share price so that Tony and the directors could make an even bigger profit on the deal when his electronics company eventually gained control, a profit which would no doubt be shared by our client.
Which was great news for everybody except the West Midlands firm, which would be paying over the odds, and Shona and me. A failed takeover bid wouldn't do much for our reputations - or our fees.
We spent the rest of that evening putting away the best part of a bottle of Tamdhu and planning what we'd do to Mr Tony Walker. He'd booked himself a suite on the fifth floor of the North British Hotel and the following day I went to see him.
To this day I'm not sure how it happened but I walked into his room fuming and ready to take a swing at him but 55 within half an hour we were the best of friends. It just happened. It wasn't personal with Tony, it was always busi- ness, just business, and when it came to making money there wasn't a stroke he wouldn't pull. He admitted that quite openly, he didn't apologize, he just smiled and said I wasn't to take it personally and that if it would make me feel any better then OK, I could take a swing at him but wouldn't I really prefer that he bought me a good lunch?
To make myself feel better I ordered the most expensive items on the menu, but by the end of lunch we were laugh- ing and joking and the prospect of Scottish Corporate Advisors losing a takeover battle didn't seem like the end of the world. He became a firm friend, I'd trust him with my life if not my money, David loved him, and after Shona he was the first person I rang when my father died. He was on the first Shuttle up to Edinburgh, I cried on his shoulder and he helped organize the funeral and sat by me at the inquest.
As it turned out Scottish Corporate Advisors didn't win or lose the fight for Young's. The West Midlands company suddenly lost interest and I wasn't altogether surprised when our client decided to drop out, too. Tony got his fingers burnt to the tune of �30,000, though he managed to cut his losses by selling his shares at a much lower price to an Edinburgh life office which saw Young's as a possible recovery situation.
It was only much later that I discovered Shona had phoned down to Birmingham and dropped a few hints about what Tony was up to. She's a lot harder underneath than I am, and she bears grudges, but now even she'd warmed to Tony. There was still a vague wariness about her whenever he was near, though.
Eventually word got round and Tony found it harder and harder to play the takeover game, and some eighteen months ago he'd joined up with a friend from his old university and now worked as an armaments middleman, sell 56 ing mainly to the Middle East and doing a fair amount of juggling with end-user certificates. It was far from being a clean business, Tony had to make up most of the rules as he went along, and that often meant shunting money into Swiss bank accounts and encouraging buyers with wine, women and cocaine. With Tony it
There were any number of reasons why Tony could be having a quiet tete-a-tete with our client: a shared interest in good food was one, a chance meeting was another, but they were both about as likely as scoring a hole in one on the Old Course at St Andrews by teeing off at Bearsden Golf Club.
If it had been above board and Tony was offering to sell his stake or switch his allegiance then Shona and I would be involved, so what was going on was obviously not the sort of behaviour likely to win Brownie points from the Takeover Panel.
The reason why the two so-called adversaries were dining together hod flashed into our minds at the same moment -our bid was nothing more than a red herring to boost the share price so that Tony and the directors could make an even bigger profit on the deal when his electronics company eventually gained control, a profit which would no doubt be shared by our client.
Which was great news for everybody except the West Midlands firm, which would be paying over the odds, and Shona and me. A failed takeover bid wouldn't do much for our reputations - or our fees.
We spent the rest of that evening putting away the best part of a bottle of Tamdhu and planning what we'd do to Mr Tony Walker. He'd booked himself a suite on the fifth floor of the North British Hotel and the following day I went to see him.
To this day I'm not sure how it happened but I walked into his room fuming and ready to take a swing at him but 55 within half an hour we were the best of friends. It just happened. It wasn't personal with Tony, it was always busi- ness, just business, and when it came to making money there wasn't a stroke he wouldn't pull. He admitted that quite openly, he didn't apologize, he just smiled and said I wasn't to take it personally and that if it would make me feel any better then OK, I could take a swing at him but wouldn't I really prefer that he bought me a good lunch?
To make myself feel better I ordered the most expensive items on the menu, but by the end of lunch we were laugh- ing and joking and the prospect of Scottish Corporate Advisors losing a takeover battle didn't seem like the end of the world. He became a firm friend, I'd trust him with my life if not my money, David loved him, and after Shona he was the first person I rang when my father died. He was on the first Shuttle up to Edinburgh, I cried on his shoulder and he helped organize the funeral and sat by me at the inquest.
As it turned out Scottish Corporate Advisors didn't win or lose the fight for Young's. The West Midlands company suddenly lost interest and I wasn't altogether surprised when our client decided to drop out, too. Tony got his fingers burnt to the tune of �30,000, though he managed to cut his losses by selling his shares at a much lower price to an Edinburgh life office which saw Young's as a possible recovery situation.
It was only much later that I discovered Shona had phoned down to Birmingham and dropped a few hints about what Tony was up to. She's a lot harder underneath than I am, and she bears grudges, but now even she'd warmed to Tony. There was still a vague wariness about her whenever he was near, though.
Eventually word got round and Tony found it harder and harder to play the takeover game, and some eighteen months ago he'd joined up with a friend from his old university and now worked as an armaments middleman, sell 56 ing mainly to the Middle East and doing a fair amount of juggling with end-user certificates. It was far from being a clean business, Tony had to make up most of the rules as he went along, and that often meant shunting money into Swiss bank accounts and encouraging buyers with wine, women and cocaine. With Tony it
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