Big Time

Five

John’s team was working hard trying to close their takeover of Wellco, the troubled private healthcare provider in which Mac had been so interested. They were moving things along as quickly as possible before a competing bidder emerged. So far, there’d been no other offers, and John was hopeful of picking it up for a bargain-basement price.

John sat down with Rob and Keith, their in-house lawyer, to update his boss. 

John had worked for Rob for a decade. During that time, Rob’s hair had gone from grainy brown to salt-and-pepper, and his angular face had become marked by lines in his forehead that spoke of years of forced concentration. 

He’d started off as Rob’s grunt, running spreadsheets for him as Richard now did for John. But no matter how lowly John’s position, Rob had treated him with respect, which most big-shot investment bankers didn’t bother with. As a result, John was an anomaly amongst his colleagues because he’d enjoyed coming to work from the first day he started. He had heard plenty of war stories from his peers from the bank’s graduate training program, which 35 of them had completed before they’d been allowed to start on real work. Some of their duties included running personal errands, like picking up dry cleaning, getting lunches and coffee, even buying presents for wives, girlfriends, and mistresses. But it was the abuse some of the managers rained down on the grads that made certain executives legendary, feared and avoided by all the recruits.

John’s only source of frustration in the first few years was that Rob had promoted him too slowly. It grated him to watch others in his training program move ahead of him. John was an achiever and he hated being left behind. It spurned him to work even harder. Finally, after a two-year apprenticeship under Rob’s tutelage, he’d been promoted to associate, and Rob started inviting John to client meetings and dinners. Whereas before, John had only experienced amazingly long nights in the office, he now enjoyed occasional amazing nights out on the town. Dining at some of New York’s best and most expensive restaurants, places he’d only heard about before, fed his ego and pride. And it allowed him to share his newfound culinary experiences with his mother. It was more about esteem than relating.

Rob was reserved and spoke in a quiet monotone with just a hint of a Southern drawl. While every partner in the bank had ruffled a few feathers in his ascendancy up the corporate ladder, the worst Rob’s detractors could say was that he was aloof. He grew up in a small rural part of Maryland; his big break had come when the General Motors Institute awarded him a scholarship to study engineering and industrial management, then hired him as a foreman for their Atlanta plant. Later, on another scholarship, Rob had attended Harvard Business School, which guaranteed him a promotion at GM and also led him to the bank by way of a recommendation from a Harvard alumni association.

In contrast to the masters of the universe culture they worked in, where many executives drank and womanized after hours, Rob rarely stayed long at Christmas parties or work functions, preferring to be home with his family. John had seen many married men do boisterous things over the years, but he had never seen Rob even look at another woman. Rob, who just turned 53, had been married to his wife, Jill, for 29 years. They had two daughters, one 26 and the other a year older with two young children. After Rob had made John a VP a few years ago, he’d left the client entertaining to John, either stopping by for a quick drink or not coming at all. Over the years, John and Rob had become closer and were now at the point where Rob freely pestered him to meet a nice girl and settle down.

“So where are we, Sport?” Rob asked.

John gave him a quick rundown.

“Have we finalised the sale agreement?” The sale agreement was the most important document when buying a company.