7 the Deal

GEOFFREY AND MAVIS
AND THE CREDIT CRUNCH
By
Geoffreysmum

(This story is entirely fictitious)

7
The Deal

After Mr Bankrupt had left, Mr Milkem got out three glasses and a bottle of malt whiskey.
“I want us to drink to a successful business partnership” he told Geoffrey and Mavis. “I'd say that with your product and my commercial capabilities, we'll be the leader in the world toffee market in a couple of years and maybe sooner.”
“But....” Geoffrrey tried to interrupt but to no avail.
“Not that it won't be hard work” Milkem continued. “I mean I don't know anything about the toffee business but...”
“What d'you mean you don't know anything about toffee” Mavis asked him? “Mr Soderbread said it was your line of expertise. He said you know everything there is to know about confectionery.”
Milkem looked uneasy for a second but he soon bounced back. “Confectionery yes” he assured them, “I know a lot about confectionery but I know it in a sort of all encompassing way so I've never had the time to go into specifics.”
Geoffrey and Mavis did not looked convinced.
“It's very simple” he told them. “If you take a famous brand of confectionery like....” he struggled to think of one, “like Heinz for example, they have people who make their chocolate and...”
“Heinz don't make chocolate” said Geoffrey, “they make beans and..”
“Oh I think you'll find they make chocolate as well” Milkem assured them. “they may make it under another name, a name not necessarily readily identifiable to the consumer but..”
“Under what name” asked Mavis?
“well I don't know, I was just trying to give you an example.”
But you gave us an example of someone who makes beans and you're supposed to be an expert in confectionery” Mavis insisted.
“Look, forget Heinz for the moment” said Milkem getting exasperated, “if we have to use a consumer friendly brand, you give me the name of a confectionery company.”
“Cadbury's?”
“Right Cadbury's it is” Milkem sighed. “Now in Cadbury's, there are the people who make the chocolate, the people who market the chocolate, the people who sell the chocolate and then there's the people at the top who make sure that all of those other people do their jobs. And that's me. I'm the person at the top. So I never actually learn how to make the chocolate and I never actually have anything to do with it, I just.....”
“Sit in a big office waiting for everyone else to do their job so you can make money” said Mavis.
“Yes I just...... No, no, no, no Mavis. I have the hardest job of everyone because I have to make sure everything runs like clockwork. You see its like a house of cards, if the card at the bottom falls, then all the others do to. Do you see?”
They didn't.
“You see I say I'm the man at the top Mavis but actually, I'm the man at the bottom holding up all the other cards because I am the culmination of all the other cards. If I fall, you all fall. Do you get it now?”
They didn't.
“But if you don't know how to do the jobs that everybody else does, how can you make sure we all do them properly?” asked Mavis.
“It's complicated” Milkem assured them. “But we will get it sorted and, let's not forget that you and Geoffrey are still the main Directors in the Company so it's still down to you both to run it the way you want to.”
“Really” said Geoffrey?
“Oh yes, this is your Company. Mr bankrupt and I may be the main shareholders on behalf of the Bank but you and Mavis are the Company. We are just here to give you good commercial advice in our positions as CEO and Chairman but that doesn't mean it's our company.” Milkem beamed at them. “So let's raise our glasses to a successful partnership.” And with that he poured three healthy measures of malt.
“Oh” said Geoffrey, “well, if we're still in charge so to speak, I suppose that's all right then. But there is just one thing we're not happy about.”
“And what's that” said Milkem in obliging tones.
“It's about the toffee. You see we just can't see how Stan can make five million bars of toffee a year. It's just not possible.”
Milkem shook his head sagely. “Don't you worry about that” he said. “You just leave that to me. Now about these contracts.”

To be continued.......

Copyright N Barton 2008

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

5. The Second Meeting

GEOFFREY AND MAVIS

AND THE CREDIT CRUNCH

by

Geoffreysmum

This story is entirely fictitious.

5.

The Second Meeting.

It turned out that Mr Soderbread wasn't at all like Mr Chargingbull. In fact, by comparison, he seemed almost charming.

“The thing is” he told Geoffrey and Mavis, “the Bank has got new policies and we can only support Companies with a really healthy profile and a hefty turn over. Now I can see you have a nice little business but, is it right for this Bank?”

“Mr Likemall used to say we had the best Toffee Company for miles around” Mavis said.

“That's as maybe” said Soderbread, “but we're not interested in local Companies, we're interested in International Companies. So the question is, could you become an International Company?”

Mavis and Geoffrey looked doubtful.

“I don't see how we could” said Geoffrey. “Our toffees good enough, in fact I'd say we definitely make world class toffee. But we've only got a tiny factory and there's only five of us working there. I'm not sure we could supply an International market.”

“Shame” said Soderbread. “It's a shame because I have a feeling you and Mavis have the potential to go right to the top of the toffee industry.”

“ Do you really” said Mavis?

“Oh yes,” said Soderbread. “Do you know, I never eat any toffee that doesn't come from Northern Block Toffee and I make a point of giving your toffee to my best customers every Christmas.”

“Well I never,” said Geoffrey. “It's very good of you to say so Mr Soderbread but I still don't see how a little company like ours could supply thousands of customers. We have a job keeping up with demand at the moment and we've only got twenty six.”

Mr Soderbread shook his head sadly. “Oh well” he said “I'm afraid I'm just going to have to call in your loan.” Then he stopped and seemed to be mulling over an idea. “Unless” he said finally, “ unless I could persuade the bank that you have such a good business, we should lend you more money so you could get a bigger factory and a lot more staff.”

The couple looked at him in amazement.

“Would you really do that for us” they said in amazement?

Mr Soderbread smiled at them. “I am nothing if not an entrepreneur” he told them “and when I see a good opportunity, I grab it. Now, down to figures.” and he settled down to scribble out some figures. Geoffrey and Mavis sat for half an hour watching until finally, Soderbread looked up at them and beamed.

“Right” he said “here's the bottom line. New factory, let's say one million...”

“One million pounds” Mavis shrieked. “We can't afford a million pounds! How on earth will we pay it...”

Geoffrey quickly noticed that for one split second and in response to Mavis's outburst, Mr Soderbread suddenly looked extremely ugly and no where near as friendly.

“OK,” he said “a million pounds for the new factory and what else?”

Soderbread was mollified. “Then we'll need at least 50 new staff. Then there's redundancies and...”

“Redundancies” said Geoffrey. “Who's going to be made redundant?”

“We'll deal with that later” said Soderbread. “Now where was I? New equipment, computers, accountants, lawyers, Directors....”

“Directors?” said Mavis “Why would we need Directors? Geoffrey and I are the Company Directors.”

“Ah but” said Soderbread seriously, “we're moving into high finance here. Major investment from the bank, new technology, marketing skills, negotiation skills. The bank is going to need a couple of its own people on the Board as directors to help you with all this.”

Geoffrey and Mavis didn't look happy.

“But I tell you what I'm going to do” Soderbread said conspiratorially. “Instead of putting actual bank people in, I'm going to put in a couple of people from a very good consultancy firm to over see operations for the bank.”

Geoffrey and Mavis still didn't look happy.

“And do you know what their particular line of expertise is?”

“No” they said miserably.

“They are experts in, wait for it, confectionery!”

“Really” said Geoffrey brightening immediately, “you're going to put in people who understand toffee?”

“Toffee, Fudge, Truffles, you name it, they're the experts!”

“But..” Mavis started.

“So that's it then, they'll be round tomorrow morning with the Contracts and the new facility letter. Five million pounds.”

“Five million pounds!” said Geoffrey amazed!

“Yep, that's it” said Soderbread, “not a penny more. Take it or leave it.” and then he got up to leave.

“What are there names” Geoffrey shouted after Soderbread as he left the room.

“Mr Bankrupt and Mr Milkem” Soderbread shouted back.

“Those are funny names” Mavis said to Geoffrey.

“Probably French” said Geoffrey. “The French are very good at confectionery.”

To be continued........

Copyright N Barton 2008