by Penny Avis
By midnight Meredith was ready to leave, a bit drunk but not as bad as the others. Her greater experience in the ways of Daisy’s drinking games had paid off. Nevertheless, she still had an early start the next day, so Daisy rang her a cab, which to her surprise only took fifteen minutes to arrive.
‘So the rest of the world does know that this place exists.’
‘Shut up,’ said Daisy. ‘I’ll get your coat.’
They hugged by the front door. ‘Thank you, that was lovely and very funny. I haven’t laughed so much in ages,’ said Meredith.
‘What was that call about – the one you had to hide in my laundry room to take?’
‘Oh, it was about a confidential deal. I didn’t want anyone to hear me mention any company names.’
Daisy raised her eyebrows. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. Now bugger off and go and look after your dancing queens. I think they’re doing the tango next…’
They both collapsed in a fit of giggles.
‘Was Debs interested in helping you with the gallery?’ asked Meredith once she had caught her breath.
‘Yes, totally. That was a great idea of yours. She thought we’d have loads of clients in common that we could refer to each other. We’re going to meet up to have a chat about the “in” colours, so I can make sure that I get in plenty of paintings that will blend with them.’
‘Now you’re talking,’ said Meredith. ‘We’ll have your business flying before you know it.’
Despite the fact that she’d had a great evening, Meredith sat in her cab on the way home feeling rather deflated. She loved Daisy to bits, but she couldn’t help but feel jealous of what her friend had with Dougie. They were so natural in each other’s company: no pretending, no having to look your best all the time – Daisy spent half her life in dungarees, for God’s sake! Even Julie and Stefano seemed totally at ease with each other, however ridiculous they might seem to everyone else. What did she have? A relationship with a man who lived four thousand miles away that was based on nothing but sex and the fact that he made her feel good about having had a boob job. Surely she could do better than that?
Chapter 17
Two weeks later, Meredith was sitting in her office with Alfred discussing progress on the Beau Street deal.
‘When are the reports due in from the accountants and the lawyers?’ Meredith asked.
‘Tom Duffy said he’s expecting them this week and will forward us copies as soon as they’re signed off,’ said Alfred.
Meredith nodded approvingly. ‘That’s per the timetable and it’ll be good to finalise the valuation for the business, so hopefully it’s all gone smoothly.’
‘We haven’t heard much from them over the last couple of weeks, so I guess it has. According to Tom they’ve all been burning the midnight oil to get the reports ready for us.’
‘Good, the Equinox board have been very clear with Ryan that nothing less than full disclosure will do.’
‘When’s he coming over next?’
‘He thought it was best to give Beau Street some breathing space while the investigations were going on. As soon as the reports are done and the valuation is set, he’ll bring the whole team over to negotiate the final terms of the deal.’
Meredith tried to feel excited about Ryan coming back but instead she just felt apprehensive. She was finding the periods of enforced separation that inevitably came with a long distance relationship hard to deal with. She and Ryan spoke every day and he was constantly emailing or messaging her. Sometimes she wondered if he was actually surgically attached to his laptop, as he seemed to be on it all hours of the day and night. But that simply wasn’t enough and Meredith was beginning to think that maybe this type of relationship wasn’t for her. Lurching from periods of high excitement and intensity to periods of treading water until he next visited was making her miserable.
Alfred interrupted her thoughts. ‘Forty-eight million is a fair price, provided the business is as good as they say it is. It’s towards the top end of the range that other businesses have gone for.’
‘Because they came out so well in the league tables,’ Meredith reminded him, shaking herself back into the conversation. ‘And management clearly know that; it’s all over their literature. Quite rightly, they’ll be expecting to be paid handsomely for the reputation and client base they’ve built.’
There was a knock on the book and they both looked up.
‘Nick, hi,’ said Meredith, standing up immediately. Unannounced visits from Nick were a pretty rare occurrence and often an indication that he was on the war path. Had he found out something? ‘We were just discussing progress on the Beau Street deal,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady.
‘Ah, how’s that going?’ Nick asked.
‘So far, so good. We’re expecting the results of the legal and financial investigations any day. So we’ll know then if there is anything that will impact on our preliminary valuation. Seems like a great business, though, and Equinox are pretty gung ho about buying it.’
‘Great. Keep me posted, won’t you? Anyway, I just popped down to give you some good news. We’re through to the next round of the VuePharma pitch. Presentations are in ten days’ time. Hazel’s putting all the details in your diary,’ said Nick.
‘Wow, that is great news!’ said Meredith. ‘They took their time, didn’t they? I was beginning to worry that it was taking so long.’
‘I think more people pitched than they’d expected and the email said that the standard had been really high. So they probably just took their time deciding who to choose,’ replied Nick.
‘How many are through?’ Alfred asked.
‘They haven’t said, but I’m guessing three, maybe four at the most. So I think we’ve got a really strong chance of winning it.’
‘I’ll get right on it,’ said Meredith, feeling hugely relieved. Lars would have been unbearable if they’d fallen at the first hurdle. At least now she’d have a proper shot at it, and she was absolutely determined to get it right.
Once Nick was out of earshot, Meredith snapped into automatic pilot. ‘Right, I want a project room booked with whiteboards, flipcharts, the lot. You know, a proper war room.’
Alfred nodded.
‘Then we need profiles of all the people attending the oral presentations from the business, last five years of accounts, analysts’ reports, recent press releases… ’
Alfred stopped her mid flow. ‘I know what you need, just leave it with me. It’ll be ready by tomorrow.’
Meredith smiled; she should have learnt by now.
‘Thank you, you’re a genius,’ she said.
Alfred hurried off to start war room preparations and Meredith sat down to draft a plan for their pitch. They already had all the information they needed; phase one had dealt with that. This part was all about convincing VuePharma that they were the right people to work with. Chemistry would be everything. Meredith thought about Jamie’s approach to the Brightside Care Homes pitch, where he had ‘stalked’ the management team, as he put it. What was it that he’d said? ‘Leave nothing to chance’ or something like that. Maybe she should take a leaf out of his book. She absolutely had to win this pitch.
Meredith spent the next hour researching the management team due to be at the presentation. As she searched, she stumbled across a reference to Patrick Fournier, VuePharma’s chief operating officer, on the website of a university based in Paris. He was giving a lecture about their research and development methodology to a group of pharmaceutical science students the following afternoon. Maybe she should try to attend? But under what premise? She could hardly pretend to be a student and then turn up to pitch to him a week later. Meredith considered her options. She was an industry expert in a leading bank. Perhaps she could just use that and explain, quite truthfully, that the bank was interested in deepening its understanding of the sector. It was worth a go. Most of the time, people were just glad that anyone turned up for those types of talks. Meredith ran
g the university and a combination of the right jargon, perfect French and some good, old-fashioned blagging seemed to do the trick.
By nine o’clock the next morning, Meredith was on the Eurostar heading to Paris. Alfred had given her a stack of reading to take with her, but for the first hour of the journey she just sat staring out of the window, turning a rapidly cooling cup of coffee round and round in her hands. She had to make sure that this trip gave them an edge. She didn’t know yet what that might be, but hopefully Patrick Fournier’s lecture would give her some ideas.
The university campus was a bleak, grey affair that seemed to have been designed to create a series of perfectly formed wind tunnels. By the time Meredith reached the lecture hall where Patrick was speaking, her neatly groomed look had been replaced by mad hair, a runny nose and smudged eye makeup. She dived into the ladies’ in an attempt to repair the damage and then took her seat in the lecture theatre.
Patrick arrived at the front of the lecture hall a few minutes later. He was slim and not very tall, with dark hair and glasses. He was wearing a beige cowl-necked jumper over a white work shirt with the top button undone and was sporting several days’ worth of designer stubble. There was a hushed silence as he arranged his papers on the lectern and started speaking. Although Meredith was fluent in French, the highly technical nature of his talk meant she had to concentrate really hard to follow what he was saying. Nevertheless, she understood the gist of it. VuePharma had developed a new methodology for assessing the success of its research and development programmes in a more systematic and empirical way. This had helped them decide where to focus their money, and as a result, they were bringing drugs to market much more quickly than before. Several students at the university had been involved in developing the methodology, which showed the importance of the link between business and academia. At Patrick’s instigation, two of the students with whom he had worked stood up and gave a quick bow to the audience, clearly pleased as punch to be getting a name check.
Once Patrick had finished speaking, Meredith gathered her notes and made her way to the front of the hall. To her dismay, there was already a long line of students waiting to speak to him. He was clearly a bit of a local celebrity. She waited patiently for nearly ten minutes, until Patrick announced that he had to go and dismissed the rest of the queue before she’d had a chance to talk to him. Damn!
Meredith made her way out of the lecture theatre, cursing her bad luck. She should have got there earlier and sat nearer the front. As she was walking out of the building, she spotted the two students who had stood up at the front waiting to get a coffee. She quickly jumped in the queue behind them. One of them was tall and rangy, while the other was small and rounded, like the perfect comedy duo.
Meredith tapped the taller one on the shoulder. ‘Hello, aren’t you the two guys who worked on the VuePharma methodology programme? I was just in the lecture.’
They turned to look at her and then grinned at each other. ‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Well, I’m very impressed and it sounded like a truly excellent programme. And what about Patrick Fournier? He’s quite a guy, isn’t he? Great lecture; I was riveted from the start,’ said Meredith, employing her usual flattery tactics.
‘He’s amazing,’ said the taller guy.
‘Really amazing, and one of the cleverest people I’ve ever met,’ agreed the smaller one.
‘I’d love to meet him,’ said Meredith, ‘but he had to rush off. Such a shame.’
‘Oh, he’s coming back in about an hour. He’s just in a meeting with our head of department and then he’s coming back to talk to us before he goes. They’re trying to agree the budget for the next part of the programme. Are you a student?’
‘No, I work in the healthcare team for an investment bank, Clinton Wahlberg, and we’re very keen to learn all we can about the sector. We attend all the major conferences and lecture talks,’ said Meredith, fairly sure they would have no idea whether that was likely to be true or not. She was right: they both nodded knowingly at her, as though it was something they came across every day. ‘Perhaps you could introduce me to Patrick?’ she asked.
‘Sure,’ said the smaller guy with a friendly smile. ‘He just loves talking about the programme.’
‘Great! I’ll just hang about here then,’ said Meredith. ‘Are you guys waiting too? I’d love to hear about the programme from your perspective as well. We know how important the relationship between universities and business is for the sector.’
Meredith spent a very fruitful hour with the two students, who seemed to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the VuePharma business. She gleaned more information about what was going on in the business than she ever would have gained from five minutes with Patrick at the end of the lecture. They were a veritable gold mine. And, as promised, they also introduced her to Patrick. Although she only spoke to him for a few minutes, their brief meeting achieved everything she’d hoped. She was able to introduce herself, explain why she was there and let him know that she was one of the team ‘he’d be meeting soon on other matters’, knowing that she mustn’t spell it out any more than that, as Vue’s plans for expansion were still highly confidential. He’d been very impressed and flattered that she’d made the effort to attend his lecture and the chemistry between them had been good.
Meredith made her way back to the train station in Paris feeling very pleased with herself. Thanks to the student double act, she had pages of notes that she could use to make their pitch really specific and hopefully insightful, plus she had broken the ice with one of the key decision makers. Her rather spur-of-the-moment gamble had totally paid off and she reminded herself that she must thank Jamie for being the inspiration behind her approach. She sat on a bench waiting for her train back to London, cheerily rehearsing the pitch in her mind, until her phone rang.
Meredith looked at the number flashing on her telephone. It was Tom Duffy – probably calling to say that the reports were ready, she thought.
‘Hi, Tom, how are you?’
‘Not great, I’m afraid. Is it a good time to talk?’
‘Of course. Is something wrong?’ Meredith could hear the concern in his voice.
‘Our accounting investigation has thrown up a problem,’ he said.
‘I’m sure we can work round it. There’s always something that comes up, Tom.’ Meredith tried to sound reassuring.
‘Not like this, it doesn’t. I don’t know quite how to tell you this, but I’m afraid we’ve discovered that one of our doctors, Lloyd Cassidy, has been running an out-of-hours surgery, charging patients sky-high prices in return for anonymity. These patients have been paying in cash and booking in under false names. And to make matters worse, Lloyd has been pocketing some of the money. So we’ve a fraud on our hands too.’
‘Oh my God!’ said Meredith, struggling to take it all in.
‘I must assure you that the rest of the management team knew nothing about it. We’re as shocked as you are. And clearly we’ll need to inform Equinox, but as you’re their advisers, we felt that we should speak to you first. Lloyd has been suspended and we’re launching a full investigation naturally – the accounting team from Payne Stanley are going through his client records as we speak. We don’t yet know the scale of the problem, but hopefully they’ll get a handle on that very soon.’
‘That really is very bad news, Tom, and yes, we must tell Equinox right away. Lloyd was one of your highest earning doctors and this will have to be factored in to our valuation of the business. That’s if Equinox still want to go ahead at all. To be honest, this is really going to spook them.’
But that was not all that was worrying Meredith. The words ‘going through his client records’ were reverberating around her head like they were being shouted at her through a megaphone from two feet away.
‘We understand that, of course,’ said Tom. ‘Charles is going to ring Lawson Green this weekend and explain how we intend to ring-fence the rest of the business. It really
is an isolated incident that’s not at all reflective of how we operate here.’
‘Well, I’m not sure that’s how they’ll see it.’ Meredith’s heart was racing. She desperately tried to push her own worries to the back of her mind and focus on what she needed to do for her client. ‘Let’s take things one step at a time. We’ll need an analysis of revenue that excludes all of Lloyd’s clients, on the assumption that he won’t be continuing with the business, plus an estimate of any other financial implications. Might there be legal claims, for example?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid there might be. We’re aware of at least one so far.’
Meredith shook her head. This was a bloody disaster. ‘I see. Well, if you can get me any estimates as soon as possible, we’ll start reworking our valuation for the business. And I’ll ring Ryan Miller later today. Then let’s speak again after that, shall we?’
‘Yes, of course. And please do stress to your client that we’re taking every possible step to deal with this issue. The Beau Street Group is a great business and hopefully we can still convince them of that.’ Tom’s voice sounded tense and full of emotion.
After the call, Meredith sat on the bench with her head in her hands. Every ounce of the euphoria from the success of her university visit had been sucked out of her. She felt sick with worry as she recalled her conversation with Lloyd Cassidy when he’d offered her his ‘premium service with extra privacy’. Thank God she hadn’t taken it. But what if they found out that she’d been his patient? They were bound to investigate it further – check that she hadn’t paid cash or done anything else dodgy. The thought of having to provide all her payment records to other people working on the deal was just horrific. Visions of them giggling over her paperwork and then peering at her to see whether they could spot what she’d had done danced before her eyes.
She took plenty of deep breaths and tried her best to calm down. She got up and made her way to a small kiosk in the station and bought a bottle of water. After a few minutes of walking around in the fresh air and sipping her water, her initial panic had subsided. Nothing had happened yet, and she really needed to get a grip of the situation.