“I’ll need to revamp my website if I buy Dean’s business,” I said with a smile.
He led the way to the window table. “I know a good web designer should you need one,” he said as he pulled out a chair for me.
We ordered drinks. “Dean’s announcement that he intended to sell was a bolt out of the blue,” Ben said when the waiter went off to the bar. “I thought he’d always be there to look after me, even after his heart attack.”
“I’m sure it’s difficult for him to let go,” I said.
He nodded. “When we love what we do, we want to keep doing it forever.”
“Are you looking at retiring?” I asked.
“Cordova Philanthropies is a private charitable foundation that my late father set up. I ran it for many years, but I handed the reins to my daughter 18 months ago, though I lend a hand whenever she needs me. And Marianne has needed me a fair bit these past few months. She had her third child in June.”
“Congratulations,” I said.
He smiled. “Next to the grandkids, Cordova Philanthropies is my pride and joy. So I try to keep my hand in.”
I nodded, liking what I was learning about Ben.
“We’re not Warren Buffett or Bill Gates,” he said, “but we make sizable grants to the arts in southwestern Ontario. My dad wanted to create a family legacy with money his uncle left him in the 1960s, and we’ve been funding worthy artists and arts groups ever since.”
Our drinks arrived, and Ben asked the waiter for menus. He tapped his beer stein against my wine glass. “To the success of your new business, whichever one you decide to buy.”
“You’ve been with Dean a long time.” I wasn’t sure how long Dean had looked after Ben’s money, but I wanted to get an idea of how far they went back.
“For years. Long before he moved to fee-only. When he told me what that was all about, I was completely behind him.”
My mind was racing. Would he want to shop around for a new advisor?
“I have to tell you, Pat—may I call you Pat?”
“Please do.” I smiled, trying to hide my apprehension.
“And call me Ben.” He gave me a disarming smile. “I won’t necessarily stay with whoever buys Dean’s business. But the fact that you want to run a fee-only practice speaks well of you.”
“You’re entitled to find the best advisor for your needs,” I said, although my heart was hammering in my chest.
“I’m a believer in first impressions so I’m putting a lot of stock in this meeting.” His eyes locked with mine.
Part of me wanted to get up and leave. The other part wanted to fight to win Ben’s approval, and this won out. “How do I rate so far?”
“Well, if you’d talked nonstop, I’d have written you off by now. Financial planning is about listening to the client. Letting him tell you what his goals are and what he needs.”
He seemed to know my job inside out.
“There are several things on your website that I like,” he went on. “You have the right industry designations and plenty of experience in personal finance. And you were on the board of Toronto DanceLab, which means you’re willing to volunteer your time. And you’re interested in the arts.”
I’d never thought my volunteer work with DanceLab would win me points with a client. I’d been in charge of fundraising for the modern dance company 10 years earlier, when Tracy, my older daughter, was taking classes at its school. But after Michael died, I gave up all my volunteer work to spend more time with my family.
Ben snapped his fingers, and a waiter hurried over to our table with two menus. “Two more,” he said, pointing to our glasses.
I wanted to look at the menus, but I was Ben’s guest. I figured I should follow his lead.
He turned his attention back to me. “And I’ll need answers to a few questions. I’ve already got the answer to the first: have you ever been sued by a client or had disciplinary action taken against you?”
He had done his research. “What did you find out?” I asked.
“You’re squeaky clean on both counts. Unless there’s something I missed.”
“You haven’t missed anything. Your other questions?”
“What is your investment philosophy? How many new clients do you hope to take on each year? Exactly what will you do for me as your client? And what would happen to me if something should happen to you?”
I pasted a bright smile on my face. “Which should I answer first?”
He waved a hand. “In good time. I’ll find out as we start working together. There’s just one answer I need right now.”
I nodded.
“Do you play golf?”
Maybe I shouldn’t have laughed, but the question caught me completely off guard. I hadn’t played golf in years. Michael and I had belonged to a club north of Toronto. I let the membership expire after he died. I hadn’t been on a golf course since the last time I played with him.
I met Ben’s eyes. “I’m sorry for laughing. It wasn’t the question I expected. I gave up golf when my husband died. I have no intention of taking it up again.”
“Too bad,” he said as the waiter arrived with a pad to take our lunch orders. “I’m looking for a golfer to complete my foursome. Dean gave up the game after his heart attack.”
***
“Golf!” I muttered as I drove down York Valley’s curving driveway.
Then I started to laugh. Ben had taken the same approach toward a prospective advisor as I would have. I’m a firm believer in checking out the people who propose to give you financial advice, and this was exactly what Ben had been doing with me. We’d each had our agendas for this meeting.
He might have been coached in this by Dean, who was clearly his friend as well as his financial advisor. Well, good for Ben. But it made me wonder whether Dean socialized with his other clients. It would take me years to develop such bonds.
By the time I got home, I had decided I could manage without Ben Cordova if I had to. His loss would be a blow, but I would double my efforts to recruit new clients. I would survive.
I found an e-mail from Jess Sayers on my computer. As I had thought, her services would cost me plenty. I gritted my teeth and told her to go ahead; I needed to know what I was getting into. I hoped her take on Monaghan Financial would be favorable, because I couldn’t afford to spend the kind of money she was charging twice.
I e-mailed Dean, asking him to send Jess a list of everything he was including in the sale.
Then I fired off another e-mail to Jess, telling her to come up with two valuations for Dean’s business—one based on Monaghan Financial’s current client roster, the other without Ben Cordova.
Chapter Six
We had our first taste of autumn that weekend: gray skies, rain, and cooler temperatures. I stayed indoors, and talked to several of Dean’s clients on the phone. They seemed happy with what he had done for them. They all had good things to say about Sam. And they seemed open to working with me. No one put me through the third degree.
Several couples and a few single men and women were approaching retirement with sizable nest eggs. A few, however, were concerned that their savings wouldn’t take them far. Some had been downsized by their employers and hadn’t been able to meet their savings targets.
A woman of 69 was supporting her daughter and three young grandchildren since the breakup of the daughter’s marriage. The daughter had returned to school to train as a teacher. The woman told me she’d been relying on Dean to help them through this rough period.
Kimberley Wilson, a single mother in her 40s, said she liked the idea of working with a female advisor. When I told her that I was a single mom too, that seemed to make up her mind. “I hope you buy Dean’s practice,” she said.
I wanted to work with these people.
***
On Monday morning, I received the two valuations from Jess Sayers. They were higher than I had expected. Even the lower price, the one without Ben Cordova on the client roster, would
mean putting all my savings into the business and taking out a loan against my home to cover the shortfall.
I asked Jess to fax Dean’s documents to my lawyer, Ilona Horvath. Then I made an appointment to see Ilona that afternoon.
Horvath & Associates was just a few blocks away from the business premises I had shared with Stéphane in North Toronto. Ilona’s assistant, Barry Easson, ushered me into her inner sanctum.
“Dahlink!” Ilona, a plus-sized woman with hennaed hair, rose from behind the desk, bracelets jangling on her arms. We hugged, and Ilona stepped back and looked at me. “You are finally going to run your own show.”
She had a husky voice with an Eastern European accent, and the dramatic flair of an opera diva. I half-expected her to break into an aria whenever she made a salient point.
“I put my other work aside to look at these documents,” she said when I was seated across from her. She patted a folder. “Financial statements, annual reports, legal status, tax returns for the past five years, business expense statements, lease and insurance coverage: they all appear to be in order. No unpaid loans or liabilities.”
She passed the folder across the desk. “You will come up with your own business name?”
“Absolutely.” I spent a few minutes going through the folder.
“You okay with the valuations?” she asked.
“Higher than I expected.”
“We’ll come in a bit lower.”
She flipped through a folder in front of her. “Ah, yes,” she said sotto voce. “The vendor stipulates that his assistant, Samantha Reiss, comes with the business. The buyer has to keep her on for 12 months after the date of purchase.”
“I’m not sure I want Sam as my assistant.” I gave Ilona a rundown of the trouble Sam had got herself into at the hospital.
Ilona held up her hands, setting her bracelets jangling again. “You should discuss Samantha with Dean before you make him an offer. He may consider changing his mind about her.”
“I don’t think Sam is up for discussion. It looks like I’m stuck with her if I want this business.”
“She may not be as bad as you think. And she knows the clients.”
And every client I had talked to had spoken well of Sam.
Ilona fixed stern eyes on me. “Keep in mind that if you let Samantha go before the 12 months are up without financial, technological, or organizational reasons for doing so, she could sue you for wrongful dismissal.”
With a grand sweep of her arm, she gestured to her computer screen. “We will present two offers. One based on the current client roster, and one without Mr. Cordova. And we will shave a few grand off what the appraiser came up with.”
Butterflies danced in my stomach. I thought of the business loan I would need, the risk I’d be taking on.
“Whether Dean accepts your offer will depend on how badly he wants to retire,” Ilona continued. “But he told you that his wife is insisting on it.”
I nodded.
“See what happens,” she said. “You can walk away at any point until you sign on the dotted line. Take your time. This business will be around for a while, and Dean knows that.”
I took a deep breath and told her to draft the two letters of intent to purchase.
“What about Samantha?” she asked.
“Don’t mention her in the offer.” I hoped Sam would suddenly find her dream job elsewhere.
While Ilona was at her computer, I took out my notepad and jotted down some ideas for sprucing up my new office suite. A fresh coat of paint and new window coverings were at the top of my list.
“Here it comes.” Ilona went over to the printer and handed me several pages. “These are just initial offers, the start of negotiations. Look over everything carefully and get back to me.”
I flipped through the pages, then stuffed them into my briefcase.
Ilona walked me to the door. “We are going to do it, dahlink!” She gave me a hug. “But don’t appear too eager to seal the deal.”
Outside the building, I reached Stéphane on my cell. “Busy right now?”
“Always busy,” he said, “but I can make time for you, ma chère. You in my neighborhood?”
“Starbucks across the street from you. Cappuccino and biscotti on me.”
“Be there in 10.”
***
“We’re not sexy enough,” Stéphane said after I’d told him about my meeting with Ben Cordova.
The sexy financial advisors are the guys—and they are almost always guys—who entertain clients and prospects in their firms’ corporate boxes at the stadium, or at the golf club, and promise them huge investment returns. They don’t tell them about the high risks involved in these investments.
“It kills me to say that,” Stéphane added, “because I hate being typecast as the opposite—which is stodgy.”
“Well, I’m not about to take up golf again.”
“And I’ve never played the game. It’s not the way I want to do business,” he said.
I smiled at him, wishing that we were a team again. “To be fair, Ben was checking me out. He wanted to see what kind of advisor he’d be working with. I would have done the same.”
“So there’s a possibility that he may stay with you.”
“I’m not counting on it.”
“You’ll make Dean an offer?”
“I’m seriously considering it.”
Then I told him about Dean’s condition about keeping Sam on. And my reservations about her.
“She made a big mistake,” Stéphane said. “But look at it this way—Dean will only stay on for a few weeks, so Sam is your lifeline to the clients. They’ve told you they like her, and she knows their backgrounds. She knows which client is entering a second marriage, who is expecting a grandchild, and who recently lost a spouse. Make Sam your ally.”
When I didn’t answer, he went on. “She admits she made a big mistake, and she says it won’t happen again. Why not take her at her word?”
Chapter Seven
I did it! Two days later, on Wednesday September 13—a date I’ll never forget—I signed the agreement to purchase Monaghan Financial in Ilona’s office.
I’d presented my two purchase offers to Dean, and told him what Ben had said about not necessarily staying with me if I bought the business. Dean and I had come up with a compromise. I would pay the lower price, the price the business had been valued at without Ben on its client roster—minus a few thousand dollars. And I would give Dean the difference between the two offers if Ben was still with me in 12 months.
Dean had insisted on adding a clause about keeping Sam on for a year. I’d gritted my teeth and agreed.
Ilona witnessed my signature. She had Barry scan the document and e-mail it to Dean’s lawyer. She told me she would send me a copy as soon as Dean had signed it.
I left her office with my nerves as taut as piano wires. But I told myself that I’d done my best. I couldn’t wait for the perfect business to present itself. And starting a business from scratch would be too long a haul.
I straightened my shoulders. It was a warm September day, and I walked the four city blocks to Cinnamon Spa, where Francesca, who had been styling my hair for years, worked.
She was busy with another client, and, while I waited, I checked my e-mail. Nothing yet from Ilona. I treated myself to a manicure and polish, and when my nails were dry, I checked e-mail again. Nothing. I called my daughters and relayed my news. They said they were happy for me.
“We’re going out for dinner tonight to celebrate,” I told them.
“Congratulations, Pat!” Francesca said when I told her I owned my own business. “I’m thrilled to have another CEO for a client.”
I don’t think she realized that the business was so small that titles like chief executive officer didn’t apply. Nevertheless, I tipped her an extra $20. With everyone telling me how terrific my news was, I was starting to feel pretty elated myself.
I checked my phone before I left the s
alon, and again as soon as I got home. Nada. Had Dean changed his mind about selling me the business? I ran a bubble bath, climbed into the tub, and tried to relax.
I didn’t touch my phone until I had dried myself off and was seated on my bed wrapped in my long white robe. Ilona had finally come through.
“Here you go!” she’d written. The signed sale agreement was attached to the message.
I jumped off the bed and danced across the room. I owned a business!
Soon I would have to face my concerns. The biggest was whether I would be able to retain Dean’s clients. And there was the matter of Sam. I was heading into uncharted waters, but today was my day to celebrate. I picked up the mystery novel I’d started and read in bed until Tommy came home from school.
***
At six, I was seated with my family at a table at Bambridge, the new restaurant in the theater district that reviewers were raving about. “You’re a business owner, Mom,” Tracy said when I’d ordered bottles of my favorite red and white wines. “How does that feel?”
I gave her a heartfelt smile. “Wonderful. One of my dreams has come true.”
Tracy placed a hand on mine. “May all your other dreams come true, too, Mom.”
My dark-haired older daughter was glowing with happiness. At the age of 26, she was living her dream. She was a junior lawyer at a Bay Street law firm, and she found securities law exhilarating. And several months before, she had moved in with her sweetheart, Jamie Collins.
“What are you calling your practice, Pat?” Jamie was also a lawyer, and she liked having all the details.
“Tierney Financial.”
“Not Mom’s Money Mart?” Laura asked with a grin.
I groaned.
“You start tomorrow?” Kyle wanted to know.
“On Monday,” I said. “I’ll give Dean the next two days to speak to his clients.”
When the wine arrived, we toasted Tierney Financial. Tommy got into the festive spirit, hoisting his glass of cherry pop. I floated through the next two hours, buoyed by excellent food and wine, the presence of my family, and the realization that my dream had become a reality.
Uncharted Waters Page 3
