Silent Partner by Stephen Frey

anxiety vanished, replaced by a surge of anticipation. It would be a tremendous experience to work directly with a man like Jake Lawrence on the acquisition of a business. It would be something she could tell her son about years from now. Even if she ultimately ended up dealing with one of Lawrence’s aides most of the time, she’d still be the envy of some powerful people on Wall Street. “What kind of help?” John Tucker had been wrong about this meeting after all, and she couldn’t wait to tell him so.
    “I want you to perform due diligence on the company before I actually make a public tender offer. I want you to meet with the company’s senior management on my behalf, prior to my making a final decision. I want you to carefully review their financial condition and gather a little market intel so we’ve got information others don’t. See, I always like to have an advantage, Angela. I’ll put you in touch with people who can help you there. Then you report back to me, and we’ll see what’s what.”
    Even as the thrill coursed through her body at the prospect of developing a direct business relationship with one of the world’s richest men, she glanced down, disappointed. This was hard to say, but she had to be honest. “I think your staff may have given you misinformation about me. As I told you, I lend money. I’m not a merger and acquisition advisory specialist.”
    Lawrence nodded. “I know that.”
    “But—”
    “Angela, you have a certain way about you I think may influence this company’s CEO to do the right thing. To do what I want him to do, which is to let me acquire his business without a messy public war. That wouldn’t do anyone but the lawyers any good. My aides recommended you for the job, but I wanted to make certain you’re the woman for the job, which is why I flew you all the way out here. If I didn’t make the appropriate advances before announcing the public tender, odds are the company’s CEO would try to repel me. Senior executives always panic when their company is threatened with a takeover. They think the first thing the raider will do is fire their sorry asses for keeping dividends low so they can pay themselves huge salaries and bonuses. And most of the time they’re right. And, if I fire them, then how the hell would they pay for their country club memberships or the love nests they maintain for the trophy girlfriends they hide from their age-spotted wives?”
    Having to pay country club dues was something she’d never worried about, but a cheating husband struck a chord. “I don’t know.”
    “Besides,” Lawrence continued, “when you make a loan to a company, you have to perform the same kind of due diligence I’m asking you to perform. You have to make certain it’s a solid business, right?”
    “Yes.”
    “And consider this. I’ll certainly want to borrow a good deal of money to pay for the acquisition.” He pointed at her. “Always use someone else’s money when you can. Even if you do have a lot of your own.”
    “I’ve heard that before.”
    “I’m sure you have.”
    “I’m still curious about why you want me to do these things for you.” Angela had learned that understanding a person’s true motivation—not the one they might be guiding you toward—was vital if you didn’t want to be hurt, if you wanted to correctly assess the risks and returns. “Why not ask one of those Wall Street investment bankers you work with to help you?”
    “I want to keep publicity to a minimum,” he explained. “They’d leak it to their friends and the press before I hung up the phone. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Wall Streeters, they can’t keep a secret.”
    “That still doesn’t explain why you want me .”
    “But your persistence does. Exactly what you’re doing right now is why I want you to work for me. My aides, who analyzed my investment in Sumter, heard about you, and, after they did some background work on you, they