The Money Makers

by Harry Bingham

  Stalwitz was taken aback. Why would a high-flying managing director use her research privileges to help a junior trader whom she hardly knew? And why Fiona Shepperton, of all people? Even in the backwaters of Compliance, Shepperton’s reputation was well known.

  ‘Why did you help him out?’

  ‘He had difficulty getting the right level of cooperation from the research staff on his first visit. It’s a complaint I’ve heard often before. The staff give priority to managing directors and the junior analysts from corporate finance who pester them every ten minutes. If you put your request in in the normal way and if they’re even half busy, your request never makes it to the top of the pile.’

  Shepperton was utterly cool, utterly convincing. Here was a Get out of Jail card, embossed with a managing director’s authority. Brian McAllister’s eyes had shot back into focus after Shepperton began to speak, but now they were off into the distance again. He excused himself and got up to use the phone in the comer of the room.

  ‘You’re aware it’s against bank procedures to let anybody else use your research authority?’

  ‘Yes, I’m perfectly well aware of that. I will start to follow those procedures once the research department is properly staffed.’ Shepperton was a managing director. Her breach of procedure was minor, even for lower levels of staff. Stalwitz was losing fast.

  ‘So you’re telling us we should check out all these information requests under your research code?’ Stalwitz tapped her crowded pad.

  ‘Sure, but you’re not going to find a lot. Remember I have four research analysts reporting to me. All of them use my code. That’s not even a breach of procedure.’ Shepperton smiled at her little joke. ‘All you’ll find is an absolute mountain of data requests each and every week. I doubt you’ll be able to separate out what came from Matthew and what came from my analysts.’

  Stalwitz had stopped writing. She pushed her pad away from her a little.

  ‘We can always check up on that, I guess.’ She didn’t sound enthusiastic.

  ‘Sure. I think you should,’ said Fiona. ‘I think it’s critical to pursue every avenue whenever you find something to cause you disquiet. Perhaps you can report back to me and Saul here over the next day or two.’

  Stalwitz paused. She had been through this kind of investigation a couple of times before. The work was unbelievably time-consuming, riffling through innumerable request slips and computer print-outs to build up a picture of what had gone on. Tracking down requests for half a dozen or more companies over a four-week period would take ages. The last investigation had taken her and a colleague a full week of brain-thumpingly tedious work, and that had required searching a much smaller field. This could take the pair of them a month. It was part of her job, and worth it if the cause was important. But Shepperton had more or less guaranteed they would find nothing.

  ‘Well perhaps we don’t need to do all the work, if we’re sure there’s nothing to find,’ Stalwitz ventured hopefully.

  Shepperton looked at Rosenthal, who understood her look. He shoved away his coffee and sat as upright as he ever got, which wasn’t very.

  ‘No. I think it’s always important to close off an investigation properly,’ he said. ‘I think we’d all be happier if we did our homework here.’

  Rosenthal’s private name for Compliance was the business prevention unit. As far as he was concerned, they might as well learn a lesson from this. Rosenthal wanted to encourage a thoughtful approach to risk­ taking, not piss on it. Stalwitz nodded.

  ‘Sure. I understand. It’s going to take more than a day or two though. I’ll try and get you an estimate of when we’ll be done tomorrow or the next day.’

  ‘Good,’ said Fiona. ‘Let’s just keep it tight.’

  Stalwitz had three kids, aged nine, seven and three. She had her normal work quotient to get done as well as this. There were going to be some long, long evenings ahead of her. Good job she knew a patient baby-sitter.

  The meeting broke up, Rosenthal muttering none too quietly to Matthew.

  ‘Don’t worry about those neurotics from business prevention,’ he said. ‘They don’t get paid enough and that gives them some kind of vitamin deficiency. Makes them tense and nervous. Jump at loud noises. I still hate your trade, though.’

  ‘They’re just doing their job, I guess,’ said Matthew, watching Fiona walk away.

  Bitch or sweetheart? She was neither. She was an angel sent down from God in heaven.

  2

  ‘Yes. This is my place.’ Kodaly pushed at his living­ room door, which was in danger of silting up from an accumulation of bottles, food wrappers, newspapers, chess magazines and old clothes. 1t’s not so tidy.’

  ‘No, it’s not. It’s disgusting,’ said Josie. She exaggerated. She’d seen worse. Deduct five years from a man’s chronological age to get his mental age, was her general rule, but Kodaly was a mathematician and a chess player, so she felt entitled to double the rule in his case. Knocking off ten years made him late teens, about right judging by the state of his floor. ‘You’d better get it tidied up.’

  ‘It’s mostly rubbish. I throw it away.’

  ‘And the clothes.’

  ‘Igen, yes. And the clothes,’ Kodaly muttered to himself in Hungarian as he shovelled rubbish into a black sack and kicked his clothes into a pile.

  Josie sat on the arm of his sofa as he worked. There was a chessboard set out on the coffee table and a game in progress. In the corner of the room, a PC hummed with the monitor switched off. There wasn’t much evidence of an active love life.

  ‘Are you playing someone?’ she asked.

  He looked at the chessboard, his gaze drawn in to the pattern of pieces, the tense contest for survival. Calculations began to work automatically in his head as he replied.

  ‘No. Is a game between Kasparov and Spassky.’ He picked up a bishop and moved it. ‘This is the move. Kasparov see it and win. Me? I see it now and under­ stand ... but in a game, with the clock ticking ... This is why I earn my living with computers.’

  He stood transfixed, though Josie knew he didn’t need a chessboard to see the game.

  ‘The rubbish, Miklos?’ she said.

  ‘Ah, yes, sorry.’

  He turned his attention back to the sack of rubbish he carried and finished tidying the room. Magazines and books were stacked up, out of order, but neat. Clothes he swept into the bedroom, where he spent ten minutes energetically cleaning up. Josie ventured into the kitchen again and, avoiding excessive contact with the surfaces, made two mugs of instant coffee.

  ‘It is done, all tidy,’ said Kodaly at last returning. ‘Next time I make it tidy before you come.’

  Josie noticed his minute hesitation over the words ‘next time’. It wasn’t a question, more an acknowledgement that Josephine was a bit out of his league, a better catch than he was quite entitled to. Josie was happy for it to be that way. She wasn’t, at eighteen, a virgin, but nor was she hugely experienced. It felt safer being in control.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, smiling. ‘I promise to appreciate it.’

  ‘Igen. Please. Sit down. I move the board, in case I don’t notice the beautiful lady.’ He carried the chessboard to the comer of the room, eyes absorbed even as he walked. ‘Kasparov is a great player. He is Beethoven, Shakespeare. I play his games and I know ... me, never... but I forget it. Now is all you.’

  They raised coffee mugs to each other and drank, already on the verge of embarrassment. Kodaly’s filmy eyes flicked leftwards to the shelf that acted as his wine cellar.

  ‘So when did you start playing chess?’ she asked. Kodaly laughed. ‘Inside my mother,’ he said. ‘My father was a good player, but he wanted me to be great. He made my mother play chess every night she was ... big with me. Then when I was born, chess for me every day too. I learn to play chess before I speak. My first word was “king”. I only learn “mother” after I can name all the pieces. Not joking, honestly.’

  Once they escaped their ini
tial awkwardness, conversation flowed quite easily. Kodaly had an unusual past and spoke about it interestingly, even wittily. Josie learned about the last years of Russian dominion in Hungary, Kodaly’s career in the chess world, his behind­ the-scenes accounts of major tournaments, his interest in computers and the bizarre world of East European computer hackers. ‘In West, computers always get bigger, work very well, you don’t need to worry so much about memory. In East, computers were very bad. You had to be very ... very elegant. Worse the computer, better the virus must be.’

  Josie spent two hours there. They did end up opening a bottle of wine, of which Kodaly drank nine tenths, but his ashen complexion suggested that his liver would consider one bottle a holiday. At length, Josie stood up.

  ‘I should be getting back. I’ve had a neighbour round to look after Mum, but she needs to get home.’

  Kodaly stood up too. ‘Of course. Well, I hope ...’

  ‘It’s been really nice, Miklos. I won’t be able to come all that often, because of Mum ... but maybe next week? Thursday? I’ll get a baby-sitter and maybe I can stay a little longer.’

  ‘Yes, please. Flat will be very tidy. Maybe I cook. You like Hungarian food? Paprika?’

  ‘That’d be lovely.’

  There was no avoiding it now. They were on the landing at the door to Kodaly’s apartment. They kissed on the cheek. Josie expected one kiss, Kodaly three. They laughed at the confusion and ended up with two, but Josie still had a hand on his shoulder. She smiled, pulled him towards her, and kissed him on the mouth, not firmly or long, but on the lips quite definitely.

  ‘See you next week,’ she said.

  3

  ‘Good morning, Zack,’ said Lord Hatherleigh. ‘Come in.’

  Zack introduced the other members of his team: Phyllis Wang, a banker from the bank’s Hong Kong office, and Hal Gillingham, the tax partner. Phyllis Wang was a tiny Chinese woman of indeterminable age. She had twenty years’ experience in Hong Kong and knew pretty much everything that went on there. Hal Gillingham, who looked his usual careworn self, was there to provide the expertise on tax.

  The viscount waved his guests over to a couple of large Chesterfield sofas.

  ‘Do make yourself comfortable. I find you really need to slouch back,’ he said, sprawling back himself. Despite his easy manner, he prickled with energy, as though his sinewy frame was too light to contain the motor within. Ever the good host, Hatherleigh asked Phyllis about her flight over and exclaimed with surprise that he’d never met her at the Hong Kong Jockey Club. But his chat was polite, not genuine. He wanted to cut to the chase.

  Zack intervened.

  ‘Perhaps we should get to the presentation,’ he said. ‘We’ve a lot of material to cover.’

  Hatherleigh nodded and Zack handed out a spiral bound dossier to everyone in the room. Each copy was entitled Hatherleigh Pacific - The Next Step.

  Inside, thirty pages of argument gave a bullet-point summary of a hugely complex financial analysis. On each page, headlines drew the eye to the main point, while beneath were charts, graphs, comparative data, maps, lists of issues, timetables, everything. Zack flipped to the first page and began to speak.

  ‘Hatherleigh Pacific is a property and shipping company. It’s got a lot of assets, basically office blocks and ships. When you became Chairman eighteen years ago, you saw that the company’s assets weren’t being used properly. The ships were chugging around half full. The office blocks were busily being refurbished and expanded. But nothing was making much money. You changed that. You cut costs. You found out what your customers wanted, then supplied it. Eighteen years later, you’ve finished what you started. Your coastal shipping service is the biggest and best there is. Your land bank is filled with state-of-the-art office blocks. Your profits are excellent.

  ‘But where do you go from here? You can’t expand the shipping side, because you pretty much own the markets you’re in. Your land bank is full, and the price of land means it’s tough to make a profit starting out from scratch again. You’ve got the management talent and ambition to do more. But how? Where next?

  ‘We believe you need to think big. The smaller companies in Hong Kong are highly competitive. It’s easy enough to buy them, but tough to improve on what they’re already doing. But there are some bigger companies with plenty of fat. Companies like Hatherleigh Pacific was, eighteen years ago. Great assets, lousy managers. We think you have the chance to repeat your magic, but on a larger canvas. We’ve come to talk about those opportunities.’

  Hatherleigh was absorbed. He crouched low over the table, studying the dossier intently, flipping forwards through the pages while Zack was still on the introduction. It was a good sign and Zack relaxed a little.

  The first part of the dossier assessed the company’s cash flows in detail. In a year or two at most, the company would hit a plateau. Hatherleigh Pacific would never be a bad company, but it might stop being an exciting one.

  Hatherleigh scrutinised the figures. He became quickly frustrated with the charts summarising the analysis and asked for more detail. Zack hauled two heavy appendices from his case. Hatherleigh began to explore the vast and detailed spreadsheets, then paused to ask his secretary to cancel his next meeting. The viscount was intent. To a layman, there’s nothing duller than huge volumes of financial analysis. But nobody in the room was looking at the numbers. What they saw was a company stripped naked and thrust beneath the lights. They weren’t looking at spreadsheets. They were examining the company’s soul.

  Hatherleigh quizzed Zack on details. Once or twice, maybe, he wanted to know the answer. But Zack also guessed he was being tested. Did this young man really know his stuff? Or was the weight of numbers just for show? Zack’s memory was flawless, his research immaculate. Without pausing for thought he recalled the tiniest detail. Why had they shown container flows at the Yang Sin terminal tailing off in 2001, Hatherleigh asked. Zack’s response was instant. Some articles in the South China Morning Post and the Hong Kong Coastal Shipping Bulletin had mentioned a major redevelopment of the port scheduled for that year. Ships of more than a certain draught would not be able to obtain entry. Examination of the port’s traffic statistics indicated that a thirty percent fall in container loads was likely. Hatherleigh was impressed. The conversation ran on.

  Gillingham rubbed his ravaged face, and rested his eyes. He was feeling rough, had done ever since this project started. But he could handle it. He had stayed dry for six years, and, though it never got easier, he had got more practised at getting through the bad times. He’d been through worse than this. Gillingham took his hands away from his face and focused back in on the discussion.

  Zack and the viscount finished with the spreadsheets and moved on to the guts of the presentation. What should Hatherleigh Pacific do? What should it buy?

  Zack had a shortlist of six names. The first five were all medium-sized Hong Kong companies. All solid. All long-established. All sensible targets. The viscount continued to listen, but he flipped forward through the presentation a little too quickly. He was getting bored. Phyllis Wang and Hal Gillingham saw the symptoms. They’d pitched to enough senior executives to read the signs. Zack was losing this one.

  Zack saw the signs too and was pleased. He wanted the right build-up to the final name. Not too slow, not too fast. He played with his audience, he spun things out, built up to a climax.

  Finally, he judged that the moment was right. He’d proved his knowledge. He’d proved his understanding. He’d talked about the other five names for long enough. Finally, Zack got to the last name.

  The South China Trust Bank. The name Zack had seen emerging from Bonnie’s teeth. The name which had been twice underlined next to a few words scribbled in the margin. Words which Zack had just about managed to decipher from a blurry mental image partly hidden by the drooping lips of a boisterous puppy. In his own handwriting, Lord Hatherleigh had written, ‘We must have this company - but how?’

  Zack began the most im
portant part of the most important presentation of his brief career.

  4

  ‘Come on you reds,’ chanted Darren. He was lugging a pair of brilliant red chairs across the loading bay towards the exhibition hall itself. This was the Northern Furniture Industries Annual Show, the biggest trade fair for the industry aside from the British Showcase event in London. Months ago, George had booked a decent-sized stand and this time made sure they were well located.

  Dave glanced across at Darren. Dave was bundling a bright blue shelf unit out of the van.

  ‘Blue is the colour. Gissings is the name,’ roared Dave. What he lacked in tunefulness, he more than made up in volume.

  Val sat on an empty crate watching the unloading proceed. It was six in the morning and the air was chilly. She drank some tea from a Thermos. Things were running smoothly and she hadn’t much to do.

  Darren returned for a table with a sliding ledge for a computer keyboard. The table was yellow, with vivid markings of blue and red. Darren’s flow of football chants was temporarily halted. Then, with a burst of inspiration, he hollered, ‘We all live in the yellow submarine, the yellow submarine, the yellow submarine.’ Dave’s next load was a low wooden cupboard, painted blue with huge white and yellow daisies. Dave didn’t know any football teams with daisies on their strip. He was stumped. As he hoisted the unit on to his shoulder and began to trudge past Val in puzzled silence, she murmured, ‘Daisy, Daisy.’

  ‘Yeah. Good one,’ said Dave. At the top of his unmelodious voice, he yelled, ‘Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do.’ He knew some obscene lyrics to go with it and the whole loading bay got to hear them.

  Val began to unwrap a couple of bacon sandwiches.