6. The Directors

GEOFFREY AND MAVIS
AND THE CREDIT CRUNCH
By geoffreysmum

(This story is entirely fictitious)

6.

The Directors

Geoffrey and Mavis had a restless night and eventually they got up at 3.00am and made some cocoa. They sat in the kitchen considering the last days events.

“I don't know Mother, something doesn't seem right” said Geoffrey. “One minute Mr Chargingbull is trying to close us down, then he dies and our new manager is trying to give us five million pounds.”

“That's a lot of money Fudge” said Mavis.

“It certainly is” said Geoffrey sadly. “I've worked it out Mavis. At the moment we have 26 customers who buy, on average 200 bars of toffee a week. Is that right?” Mavis nodded. “ So every week we sell 5200 bars of toffee and we make just over £1000 worth of profit.” Mavis nodded. “And that pays us and Stan and Irene and Reginald and the Bank loan and the rent.” Mavis nodded. “And that seems to me to be a very comfortable arrangement.”

“It's worked very well so far” Mavis agreed.

“Do you know how many bars of toffee we'd have to sell just to service the interest of a five million pound loan?” Mavis didn't. “We'd have to sell somewhere in the region of one million bars of toffee a year before we paid anyone or anything other than the bank.”

“A million bars a year! Are you mad” said Mavis?

“It gets worse” her husband continued. “They want to get in loads of extra staff and new equipment and new Directors, not to mention buying a new factory. I reckon that to cover all that we'd have to be selling somewhere in the region of five million bars of toffee a year.”

“That's impossible” said Mavis outraged. “There's no way in the world Stan could stir enough toffee for five million bars a year!”

“D'you know what Mother” said Geoffrey? “I think we're going to have to turn down Mr Soderbreads kind offer. I honestly believe it would be better to lose it all now than end up with millions of pounds worth of debt.”

“Oh Fudge, what a terrible position to be in” said Mavis.

And so they went to the factory in the morning all ready to tell Mr Bankrupt and Mr Milkem that they couldn't go ahead with the loan. But these two gentlemen had other ideas.

“Geoffrey and Mavis” said Mr Milkem as soon as they walked in the door, “Lovely to meet you. Here's the facility letter and the contracts. Sign here and Mr bankrupt will deal with everything else from here on in.”

“Where's Stan and Irene” said Geoffrey looking around?

“We sent them home” said the very smarmy looking Mr Bankrupt. “We've given them their redundancy letters. Good settlement but we don't need them any more.”

“What” screamed Geoffrey outraged “who doesn't need Stan? He's the best toffee man in the business. We can't make toffee without Stan! And where's Reginald. And who's stirring the toffee? And why isn't our Abba record playing?”

“It's all going to be very different now” said Mr Bankrupt smugly. “You just wait and see Geoffrey and Mavis, you just sign these papers, leave it up to us and you can be sunning yourselves in Antigua or Barbados all year long while we make your millions.”

“I can tell you right now Mr Bankrupt, nobody's going to be making any millions or indeed, any toffee if you don't get Stan and Irene and Reginald back, right now. Because I'm not going to sign one single paper until they're all back in their places.”

Mr Bankrupt started to snarl in no uncertain terms. It was an unwholesome sound, somewhere between a jackal and a hyena but Mr Milken put on his most confused face. “Really,” he said to Geoffrey, “I had no idea these people were so important. I looked at their wage slips and thought they were just casual staff. But now you've put it like that, we'll get them back and we'll put them on appropriate pay packages. What would you say, £50,000?”

“Between them” asked Geoffrey trying to work out the sums.

“Each” said Milkem. “Staff of that calibour are worth at least £50k each. And while we're on the subject, what about you and Mavis? Directors of such an important Company, you must be worth at least £150,000 each?”

Geoffrey and Mavis could only stare at him open mouthed.

“Agreed then” said Milkem. “Now, Mr Bankrupt if you could just go and find Stan, Irene and Reginald, I'll just have a quick Board meeting with my new partners, Geoffrey and Mavis.

Mavis was quite sure she heard Mr bankrupt growling as he left the room but, she was so shocked at the latest turn of events, she put it out of her head for the time being. It came back repeatedly.

To be continued........

Copyright N Barton 2008