The Merger Mogul (2 page)

“I can
certainly testify that it’s as good as its reputation,” Daniel confirmed.

“And are you as
good as your reputation?” asked Angela with a coy smile, returning her gaze to
her attractive companion.  At six foot two with a trim athletic body and a
face that attracted more than one look as they walked through the restaurant,
he’d certainly earned his reputation as a ladies’ man.

“Which
reputation would that be? The Merger Mogul, as the media has taken to calling
me?”

“What else
would I be talking about?” she replied in a mock innocent voice. “It’s been
said that your attention to detail is phenomenal and that you do everything in
your power to satisfy your clients. I’m wondering if that goes beyond your
corporate mergers,” she said with a flirtatious smile.

Their waiter
discreetly arrived at their table before he could respond and took their order
of
Tanqueray
and tonic with lime for Daniel and a
frozen margarita for Angela.

“Well I try to
be consistent in everything I do,” smiled Daniel after the waiter left. 
He was enjoying this verbal foreplay.  He liked women who knew what they
wanted and Angela was making it plain what she wanted. It was a pity that he
couldn’t accommodate her tonight.  He had a long day ahead of him
tomorrow.

“Now what shall
we have?” asked Daniel.

“I already know
what I want,” said Angela picking up her menu, “but let’s see
,
what shall I have to eat?”

Subtlety wasn’t
her strong point but what the heck; life was too short not to go after what you
wanted when you wanted it. Daniel smiled as he picked up his own menu and
perused it. “The Bridge Café Oysters are great to start and so is the Taylor
Bay Scallop
Ceviche
. In fact I’ve never had anything
that I didn’t enjoy.”

“So you come
here often,” Angela stated.

“About once a
month, I’d say.” He’d brought many women here and it was a good thing that the
Maitre D’ was so well trained because he never batted an eyelid when Daniel
came in with someone new.

“So that’s how
you get the best table!” said Angela.

“That’s why we
work so hard, isn’t it? 
So that we can have the best.”
That was what drove Daniel.  His story wasn’t so different from thousands
of others.  His father had left home when he was ten years old and had
never looked back. His mother had struggled to raise him on her meager salary
and he had spent most of his life never having enough. 

Fortunately, he
was bright and determined so he’d studied hard and got a scholarship to go to
college.  A student loan and part-time jobs got him through law school and
he put everything into his first job, learning all that he could about mergers
and acquisitions and doing an MBA at night.  He soon earned a reputation
as one of the sharpest consultants in the firm, which helped when he left three
years later to start Tennant Consulting.  Along the way he made a vow that
he would never lack for anything again and that he would always enjoy the best
that life had to offer, no matter the cost.

The waiter
brought their drinks and took their dinner order.

“I’m afraid I
won’t be able to stay as long as I’d like because tomorrow my team and I are having
a brainstorming retreat outside of the city and I need to head out early. I
have to go home and throw some things into a bag”.

Angela’s red
lips pouted. “That’s too bad,” she said licking the salt from the rim of her
glass, “I was looking forward to inviting you to my place for coffee.  I
make a mean cappuccino.”

Daniel groaned
silently and said: “I’m afraid I’ll have to take a rain check.”

“Perhaps I can
cook dinner for you on Saturday night,” she suggested.

“That sounds
great,” said Daniel, feeling his body stir in anticipation.

“What do you
like to eat?” Angela asked.

“Oh, I’m
easy.  I like all kinds of food and I’ll try anything at least once.”

“Good. I should
be able to cook something that you’ll enjoy then.”

“Oh, I’m sure
you will,” said Daniel. “So how’s work going?  Any breakthrough for that
new client you told me about?” Daniel changed the subject.

Angela worked
with a small Public Relations firm and focused on their Print Media
Campaigns.  In fact, that’s how they met.  Her firm had been hired by
one of his merger clients to deal with their PR after the merger and she’d
introduced herself to him at a cocktail party they’d held just over a week ago
to celebrate the completion of the merger.  He’d immediately been
attracted to her.  She was his usual type – a beautiful brunette with a
cleavage that beckoned and it was a bonus that she could actually carry on an
intelligent conversation. They’d chatted a bit at the party about her work and
he could tell that she obviously loved her job. She had confided that she
wanted to start her own PR firm some day. He wondered if she saw him as a
potential financier.  It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Work is
great,” she said with enthusiasm, as the waiter brought their appetizers. “My
client, Jenny, is finally beginning to get noticed by the media. One of her
articles was just seen by a talk show host at a TV station in her city last
week and he wants to interview her on his show. I’m really excited for her.”

“That’s great
news! Do you want to try my oysters?” asked Daniel holding out a tempting
morsel on his fork.  Angela leaned forward, showing an amount of cleavage
that was even more tempting. Daniel’s eyes drifted downwards to take in the
abundant view and then moved back up to see her lips close around his fork,
holding it in her mouth for just a few seconds, closing her eyes in bliss.

“Delicious!”
she sighed appreciatively.

Daniel shifted
uncomfortably in his chair and for a moment contemplated being late for his
retreat. He didn’t believe in wasting time so he was ready to take things to
the next level but, unfortunately, it wouldn’t be tonight.  Besides,
Saturday wasn’t that far away.  Delayed gratification was good for the
soul or was it confession that was good for the soul? Not for the body but
probably for the soul, if he believed that sort of thing. He could delay for
two nights.  Anticipation was half the pleasure and he was pretty sure
this merger would be pure pleasure. He turned his attention back to his dinner
and his date. 
Until Saturday….

Chapter 3

“Umm, good,”
groaned Daniel in pleasure as a pair of strong feminine hands manipulated the
tense muscles in his shoulders.  They drifted down to his lower back,
kneading his muscles on the way down and continued their probing and soothing for
another fifteen minutes.  Daniel was practically asleep by this time.

“You were
really tense,” the masseuse told him. “Spend fifteen minutes in the sauna and
then take a cold plunge in the pool – you’ll feel wonderful.”

“I feel
wonderful already, thanks to you,’ said Daniel, reluctantly getting up from the
massage table. He wrapped the towel around his slim hips and headed to the
sauna.

The team was
scheduled to get together, in about an hour, to start their session.  He
hoped he wouldn’t be asleep by then since his body felt like limp
spaghetti.  He definitely needed that
cold
plunge to wake him up.

 
“Ok team, I hope you enjoyed the massage and
sauna as much as I did.” There were murmurs of appreciation all around. 
Daniel sat with his team of consultants in a conference room they’d rented for
this purpose.

There was Bryan
Hardt
who had been to law school with him and was one
of his few real friends, Ian Bane who was an investment banker, Claire Morgan,
an MBA with a specialty in Finance, Benjamin
Kreiger
,
who was a tax specialist and Harold
Kellerman
, an
accountant. All except Ben had been with him for the last four years, when he
had to expand the business to handle the work that started flooding his
office.  Ben joined the group earlier in the year, so this was his first
retreat.

They were a
good team – young, bright, ambitious and willing to think outside the
box.  He paid them well and they were loyal to the company, at least as
loyal as most employees could be expected to be these days.  Most of them,
like him, were married to their work and that’s the way he liked it.  The
only exception was Harold who had been married for about ten years.

“As you all
know, the M&A market has started to slow down again which tends to happen
with a recession. In addition to that the numbers show that a third of the
mergers in the past have failed outright (like Shellbury) and almost as many
haven’t lived up to their objectives.  Bottom line is we need to come up
with some new services for the business so that we won’t be so exposed. We’ve
got a lot more overheads than when I started out eight years ago so we need
some more baskets to put our eggs in, so to speak. Any suggestions?” asked
Daniel.

“Perhaps the
best place to start is with what we already have,” suggested Claire. “We can
take an inventory of what skills we have in-house and how we can use them
differently.”

“That’s what I
was thinking as well,” agreed Daniel. “Then we can determine if we need to
bring someone on board to make up our deficiency. That person doesn’t have to
be a permanent part of the team either; we can buy in the skills if we need
them.”

“We should
probably look at our client list and the contacts we’ve got at our clients and
what we know about them since their merger,” offered Brian.

“Good idea.
Claire, can you be the scribe? Who’s going to transcribe this and put it in
some sort of order?”

“Harold!” 
Everyone else said.  They knew their strengths and weaknesses and that was
Harold’s strength. He nodded in agreement.

After they’d
been at it for about two hours, Daniel said: “OK! We created an inventory of
our skills, listed our clients and the main contacts in their businesses and
now we need to find out which ones are having post merger issues by talking
with them, figure out what’s causing the issues and how we can help them and
ourselves at the same time. Have you got all that Claire?”

“Yeah, in hieroglyphics.
 Harold, I may have to
translate some of this stuff for you.  My arms are aching.  Is this a
good time for a coffee break, boss?”

“Yes. 
There should be a coffee break set up just outside the door. Let’s come back
together in 20 minutes.”

Two hours
later, Daniel let himself into his room. His body was still relaxed from the
massage but he was mentally exhausted.  They had identified some of the
issues that they thought could be the cause of post merger problems, but they
hadn’t been able to come up with possible strategies to fix them yet. In any
case, that would depend on what they found by talking to their clients. His
head was now aching again.  He had asked the front desk to call him in a
couple of hours so that he could get ready for dinner with the team, so he
kicked off his shoes, dropped across the king-size bed and was asleep in
minutes.

The sound of
the telephone woke him.  He groped for the offending instrument and
dragged it to his ear, growling “Hello!”

“Mr. Tennant
this is your wake-up call,” said a cheerful voice on the other end.

“Thanks,” he
muttered and hung up.  He sat on the side of the bed, rubbed his hands
over his face, felt his day-old stubble and headed for the bathroom. 
Twenty minutes later, freshly shaved and feeling refreshed he was dressed and
heading downstairs to the restaurant where the group was meeting for dinner.

 
“Here boss!” waved Ben from across the
room.  He looked refreshed, excited and full of youthful enthusiasm.

Daniel made his
way to the table set for six, followed by several pairs of female eyes, and sat
down.

“Hi, Ben.
  You’re early.  Did you manage to grab
some sleep?”

“Nah, I worked
out in the gym and then went for a swim.”

“Oh, to have half of your energy!
What did you think of the
retreat?” asked Daniel.

“It was
great!  I really enjoyed the way everyone tossed out ideas and no idea was
considered too stupid, even my suggestions, though I’m the new kid on the
block. And I like the fact that we all bring different skills to the business
so that we have a good mix of possible services we can offer.”

“That was my
thought when I started to expand the company. We just need to figure out how to
fix the problems in the merged companies and we’ll be smiling all the way to
the bank.”

The rest of the
team joined them and they spent the next couple of hours enjoying a good meal
and talking about what they needed to do when they got back to the office the
following week.

“I’ll get my
part done by Tuesday and e-mail it to everyone,” said Harold.

“Thanks
Harold.  Then we can begin to set up meetings with our clients and see
what their issues are and what services we can offer them,” said Daniel.
“Brian, your idea to focus on our existing clients first makes good sense,
since we already have relationships with them and know their business. I’m glad
we have this balance in the team because my tendency is always to be looking
for newer and greener pastures rather than grazing old grass, excuse the bad
pun.”

“Yeah, we
know,” joked Claire, referring to Daniel’s short term relationships with
various women.  They all laughed as Daniel rolled his eyes and tossed back
his gin and tonic.

“What are you
doing for the rest of the weekend, Dan?” asked Bryan. “I can’t believe you let
Margaret book you here with us for company on a Friday night.”