Celia’s research on new client prospects is legendary. Gareth attributes a large part of the success of his firm to the competitive edge that Celia’s research can give him.
“Of course. Just emailed it to you now. Want the executive summary?”
“Got to love an executive summary. Shoot.”
“Cassandra Taylor is a Canadian businesswoman and one of the two majority shareholders of a clothing company called Perfect, specialising in business shirts for men and women. She is the CEO. The other majority shareholder, Beverley Allen, founded the business in 1995 and is a director too but far lower profile than Taylor. She personally designs most of Perfect’s highly regarded shirt ranges but she likes to keep out of the limelight.
“Perfect is based in Toronto but manufactures mostly from Chinese factories. It has won numerous Canadian industry prizes for being a fast track company, consistently increasing profits and turnover, but has won just as many design and fashion awards. It has considerable online business but in the UK also supplies Liberty, Selfridges, John Lewis and a number of high-end independent retailers.
“They pride themselves on their corporate social responsibility policies. They are considering a manufacturing base in the South Wales Valleys, tapping into our low cost labour market. They are keen to access Welsh government funding and other European grant funding for this initiative. Various areas of England are wooing Perfect to set up in their regions instead. Cassandra Taylor is in the UK for a couple of weeks attending numerous meetings to consider Perfect’s options. She was given some recommendations for lawyers and corporate finance advisors in Cardiff by the inward investment guys in the Welsh government and you are one of the lawyers recommended. Your mate Adrian Matthews of Stratagem Corporate Finance was also recommended by the inward investment department and he, too, will be at your lunch with Ms Taylor today, as will representatives from the Welsh Government. “
“I don’t really need to read the research document now, do I Celia?”
“Not really, no. If you get a wriggle on, you can have that agreement done before you need to leave.”
*
Gareth hates people who are late and he hates being late himself. Despite this, since he also hates wasting time by arriving anywhere too early and having to wait around, he is very often almost late. He finds himself jogging at a fair old pace for the second time that day to be on time for his lunch meeting. He arrives with five minutes to spare.
It seems Ms Taylor has a similar attitude towards lateness. She is already seated at the table when Gareth arrives. He greets her warmly as he greets every new client prospect.
“Hello Ms Taylor, I’m Gareth Maddox. Pleased to meet you.”
She stands up to shake his outstretched hand. “Pleased to meet you too, Gareth. Please, call me Cassandra.”
“In that case, welcome to Wales, Cassandra. Croeso.”
“Diolch yn fawr.”
She has shoulder length, curly blonde hair and a wide smile showing very straight, very white North American teeth. She is wearing a tailored cherry red dress with a V neckline that looks very smart and professional whilst also showing, Gareth can’t help noticing, just a hint of cleavage. He focuses on eye contact instead – she has brown eyes, very cheerful and sparkly.
“That was rather good pronunciation, have you been studying Welsh?”
“Not really, no, I’ve just got that one phrase ready to use off the bat at every possible opportunity. Oh and I’ve learned how to pronounce Rhondda too.” She says it perfectly.
“That was very well done. Impressive.”
“It was easy once it was explained to me that the double d is pronounced like ‘th’ at the beginning of ‘the’.”
“I could reciprocate for your excellent Welsh pronunciation with my rendition of the Canadian anthem if you like. We were required to learn it for a school rugby trip to Toronto a lifetime ago. Trouble is, I only remember the bit about ‘standing on guard for thee’.”
“I think I’ll pass on that then, if you don’t mind.” Cassandra smiles… “So did you enjoy your trip to Toronto?”
“I was twelve. I can’t remember a great deal about it to be honest. We played a lot of rugby and discovered Canadians were far better at it than we had been led to believe. I had my first ever hot dog, from one of those silver hot dog stands, which I thought was exceptionally cool. I remember I missed my mother more than a twelve year old was prepared to admit to. And that I was disappointed when the other teams sang the ‘standing on guard for thee’ bit that they weren’t wearing fencing masks and flourishing pointy swords.”
Cassandra Taylor throws back her head and laughs. She has a loud laugh, infectious, and people at the other tables turn their heads to smile at her. A lady with blonde curly hair and a bright red dress having a really good laugh.
“You’ve ruined our national anthem for me, now. Have you been back to Toronto since?”
Gareth shakes his head, “No sadly. I’ve not dared miss my mother that much again. Seriously, I’d love to visit. I hear great things about Toronto and my grandfather tells me that an uncle of his emigrated there years ago. Unfortunately, my wife and I seem to have been having babies for the past seventeen years or so. Makes getting anywhere further than west Wales a challenge.”
Gareth spots Adrian making his way to the table, the Welsh government representatives in tow. “Ah, here the others are now,” he says.
“Shame.” Cassandra smiles at him.
For a moment Gareth is put off his stride. It’s not as if other women have never flirted with him. At parties or weddings, Rachel enjoys pointing out women who have been eyeing him up and there was an assistant solicitor he worked with once who used to stare at him with a look of hero worship in her eyes that he found very uncomfortable. But Cassandra Taylor isn’t eyeing him up. She is just smiling at him. Isn’t she? Or maybe she’d caught him noticing her hint of cleavage and has got the wrong idea?
Chapter 3
Before Gareth is able to get his focus back, he has missed the representatives from the Welsh government introducing themselves. He thinks they said their names are Alun Griffiths and Griffith Alun but suspects he can’t possibly have heard that properly.
Adrian has taken no time at all in clocking Cassandra’s cherry red cleavage. He instantly turns on the famous Matthews charm, clasping Cassandra’s hand in both his rather than just a handshake, flashing his full beam smile, looking her straight in the eyes and holding the gaze. Gareth has been doing deals and playing squash with Adrian for a long time now and he has seen this opening gambit dozens of times. It is rare that when Adrian sets out to charm he does not succeed. He is 6’4”, generous with his cash and his attention, and women seem to really fall for him even though his longest standing relationship is with his personal trainer, a burly ex-boxer called Ed, whom he sees at least three times a week, far more time than he will ever give anyone he is dating.
Adrian is wearing a beautifully cut charcoal grey business suit and a white, open necked shirt that shows off Ed’s hard work. His head, as always, is shaved although he has a full head of hair and baldness for Adrian is optional. The shirt exhibits the exact right amount of open neck. Not so low that he is showing too much chest, not so high that he looks like he’s just got home from school and taken his tie off. Gareth wishes he could carry off this open necked shirt look. Ever since dress codes everywhere were relaxed and no ties became the norm Gareth has felt a little unsure of his clothing choices. He knew where he stood with ties. No tie still feels strange, like wearing brogues without socks. But Adrian doesn’t look strange at all and it crosses Gareth’s mind for the first time that maybe open necked shirts are a different type of shirt altogether, and not at all the same as wearing the shirts you already own, just without a tie.
Cassandra takes charge of the meeting.
“Thank you gentlemen, for taking the time to meet with me. I appreciate it. It’s a privilege to meet with you. I’ve never before had the h
onour of lunch with four Welsh men.”
“Actually, I’m Irish,” says Adrian. “A Cork man. The accent’s a bit of a giveaway Been here in Wales a long time but still can’t ditch it.”
“My apologies. I’m from Canada. I won’t insult any of you Celts by telling you how many people back home have asked me where exactly in England Wales is situated.”
“Ach, Cassandra, it takes an awful lot more than that to insult me,” Adrian smiles. He’s really hamming it up now, Gareth thinks, exaggerating his Irish accent, and grinning like a leprechaun. A really tall one.
Cassandra seems not to notice, signals to a waiter who immediately comes to their table.
“Right gentlemen. I’m going to order quickly so we can get on with our discussion. I’ll just have a main course please, a rare steak and a salad, no fries. Tap water to drink with ice and lemon – please bring a jug and we can all share. And it would be really appreciated if you could serve us quickly as I’m due back in London later this afternoon.”
She looks expectantly at her fellow diners, signalling to them to order quickly.
“Oh, I’ll have the same but with chips for me please,” says Adrian. “Been to the gym this morning and I’m starving.”
“Me too,” said Alun hurriedly. “And me,” says Griffith.
Gareth hesitates for all of about three seconds. “Sounds good. Me too.”
“Excellent,” Cassandra smiles at the men seated around her, hanging on her every word. “So, as you know the reason we’re here today is to discuss Perfect’s proposals to set up a shirt factory here in the UK. Up until now, we have manufactured in China. We’ve been responsible employers, paying above average wages to our Chinese workers, providing decent living accommodation and other benefits such as funding schooling for their children. Being fair is at the heart of our company ethos. However, recent continued wage increases in China and a steep rise in transportation costs have led to us doing an analysis of the figures. And we think the costs of moving some of our manufacturing to the UK, and to Wales in particular, could be on the brink of being competitive. We are not going to move everything from China – we would not do that to our Chinese employees who rely on us. But we are looking at moving the manufacture of one of our most successful ranges to the UK.
That range is our Sharp Shirt range which is a top end range of shirts for both men and women. Double cuff, pearl buttons, top quality cotton. If I’m not mistaken Adrian, I think you are modelling one of our range today.”
“Well spotted Cassandra. Always like to do my research before a meeting.”
He winks at her. An actual wink. Gareth stifles an internal groan.
“If we do move production to the UK, we also hope to source our cloth from UK textiles factories and to expand our women’s range, develop our cut so that it fits ladies of all sizes.” With this last bit, Cassandra glances down very quickly at her own capacious frontage and smiles ruefully.
“Why the UK? Why not Canada given you are a Canadian company?” asks Alun. Or possibly Griffith.
“Good question. The south east of England and London in particular is one of our busiest areas of demand so having the shirts made here reduces cost and decreases waiting time. It also allows us to get new designs to market faster. But I’d be lying if I said that possible funding from Welsh government to help create those jobs is not a significant factor. But more significantly, and the reason we are particularly interested in setting up in the Rhondda, is our interest in the Burberry factory that closed a number of years ago.”
“Are Perfect and Burberry considering some sort of joint venture or merger?” Adrian asks, thinking of the fees he could make on a deal like that.
“Not at all. Perfect only grows organically not via merger. What we are interested in is harnessing the sewing skills of the ex-employees of Burberry. Our research suggests there will be a pool of talented and experienced labour that we can tap into for Perfect.”
Their food arrives and there is silence for a while as everyone cuts into their steaks.
Gareth is the first one to speak. “As someone who grew up in the Rhondda, this sounds a very worthwhile proposal. But the Burberry factory closed down back in 2007. Some of the employees will have long since retired or become unwell, died even, or retrained and got jobs elsewhere. I’m not certain that any pool of experienced labour will be a particularly large one.”
“We know these people are going to be rusty, we know they will need some re-training and we are going to have to train some people from scratch. This is not a problem for us. We aren’t unduly concerned about that. So long as we can identify a few key people who can help us train others, that will suffice. We think we will need up to 300 employees eventually. And if we choose the Valleys for our location, we believe the story behind the people who make our shirts here in the UK is going to be a selling point for us, and help Mr Matthews raise the funding we need.”
“And, of course, there is some funding to assist potentially available via the Welsh Government,” says Griffith.
“So there is,” Cassandra smiles at him.
“You’ll need a good business plan,” Adrian comments.
Cassandra looks annoyed and pointedly puts down her knife and fork before responding curtly. “Mr Matthews, Perfect has been in business for over twenty years. Do you really think we don’t already have an exceptional business plan?”
Gareth steps in to fill the awkward silence that follows. “I can think of a number of the people I grew up with who left Wales a long time ago, and have been very successful in business, who might be persuaded to put some money into this venture. Partly for sentimental reasons but mostly because of that exceptional business plan you refer to. With Adrian’s help, the investment could be structured in a very tax efficient way.”
“And the Welsh government is extremely interested in helping in every way possible to bring those jobs to Wales,” added Alun.
“Excellent news gentlemen. I shall email you some further details later this evening when I am back in London. I need to wrap this lunch up, now, I’m afraid.”
Mr Alun and Mr Griffith set about finishing their steak and chips with vigour.
“Gareth, would you mind giving me just a little more of your time. I would like to discuss with you my suggestions for how this business will be structured and get your initial feedback. Perhaps you’ll come to the bar and have a coffee with me there and everyone else can finish their lunch at their leisure.”
With that, Cassandra rises gracefully from the table, shakes hands with the other three and in a swirl of red leads the way to the bar.
“Let me guess what coffee you’ll have,” she says, choosing a table tucked away in the far end of the bar, well out of view of the restaurant. “Double espresso? How did I do?”
“Spot on. Good guess.”
“Not really, you don’t look like the kind of man who drinks a cappuccino or latte. Too mild and milky. “
“Two double espressos,” she calls to the barman, who nods. Gareth comes to this restaurant a lot and in his experience requests for coffee from the barman result in a curt statement that they should order from the waitress. But the barman appears to be under the same spell as the lunch guests had been and does what Cassandra requires and does it straight away.
Cassandra looks at Gareth and grins cheekily.
“The structure is going to be a wholly owned UK subsidiary of the Canadian company.”
“Right. So…”
“It wasn’t really necessary to whisk you away into the bar to talk about structure but Alun was eating with his mouth open and I couldn’t take it a moment longer.”
“Can’t say I noticed myself.”
“Well I wish I hadn’t. It was like a cement mixer in there. Look, we haven’t made a final decision on location yet. The Rhondda is definitely on our shortlist but there are others. However, wherever Perfect locates its UK factory we would like you to represent us. Are you willing to do that? Even if we
don’t choose your home town?”
“The Rhondda’s not exactly a town.”
“You know what I mean,” Cassandra says, rolling her eyes.
“I’d love to.”
“Excellent!”
She takes a little sip of her coffee and smiles at him over the rim of her cup. Gareth is still not certain whether she is flirting with him. He thinks she might be and the fact that he thinks she might be makes him more conscious of her sparkly eyes and big smile and her curves under that red dress. He twists his wedding ring nervously.
“So Gareth, what is your initial view on our UK factory idea?” His name sounds entirely different in her mouth, alien and somehow more interesting.
“I think it’s great. You are a very successful company already. You’ve got all the marketing skills and contacts. You already have a proven market and loyal customers for this particular clothing range. Provided the quality is maintained, that customer base will be very glad to buy British and that USP can feature in your marketing campaigns. Speaking personally, I really do hope you choose the Valleys as this is exactly the sort of thing needed. New jobs, new skills, new focus. But I can assure you that my personal opinions will not impact on my service to you as your lawyer.”
“Good to hear it. Some of the feedback we’ve had suggests we may struggle to find the work ethic we require in the Valleys. We’re told that there are people living in the Rhondda who are now third generation unemployed and not in the habit of working for a living.”
Gareth winces. “I’m afraid that is true in some cases. But not all – a very long way from all.”
“You know, in Canada people are still arriving from other countries, and our new citizens can’t wait to work hard, build something new, make something of themselves. We’re a young country and we still have a strong pioneering spirit.”
“The Rhondda’s heritage is pioneer spirit. People arriving from all over to work in the coal mining industry. A company like Perfect will be able to find that spirit.”
Thicker Than Water Page 3