“I’m older,” I admitted. “I’m not concerned about Julia’s youth. She’s an amazingly quick study.”
Over the crackling of the fire, there was a collective inhale. Yes, I’d hit a chord and I would be happy to hit more. “What is your concern regarding Wade?” I asked again.
“The unknown is rattling the shareholders.”
I nodded. “We’re down to fewer and fewer when it comes to shareholders. Currently, there is you” —I nodded toward Mr. McGrath— “maintaining Julia’s shares, the Butlers, roughly four or five other entities holding ten percent, and myself.” I sat back against the chair. “Tell me who is rattled, and I’ll be happy to take their shares off their hands.”
“Why would you do that?” Mrs. McGrath asked. “Wade Pharmaceutical is nothing with a portfolio like yours. You could easily ruin us and leave the company for dust, a write-off.”
“He won’t,” Julia said.
“Mr. Sherman?” Mr. McGrath asked. “Why should we trust you?”
“You don’t have to. Don’t trust me. Your shares will be mine once Julia and I are married.” Before he could protest, I waved him off. “Yes, of course there will be a prenuptial agreement. However, theoretically, they’ll be at my disposal. I’m working on the other ten percent. That will give Julia and me sixty-five to seventy-five percent.” I turned to the dickass by the window. “Sell me your shares, Mr. Butler. I’ll pay double what they’re currently worth.”
Skylar Butler turned my way.
I could read him like an old newspaper. He was seeing money signs and opportunity. Wade didn’t mean anything to him. He wasn’t attached, yet he couldn’t show that tonight, not here in front of Julia and her parents.
“No,” he finally said. “Wade has a sentimental value. I work there as does my father.”
“Sell to me and you can quit.”
It was Julia’s turn to stare in silence, her gaze going between me, her fiancé, and dickass, her ex-fiancé.
“The Butlers aren’t selling,” Mrs. McGrath said.
Her answer made me scoff. It was exactly as Julia had said; Mrs. McGrath spoke for whomever she wanted. Ignoring her interruption, I spoke to Butler. “Think about it, and if you decide to have an opinion of your own, call me. My people will draw up the paperwork.”
“I have an opinion,” he said meekly.
I could cut him up and have him for lunch. If he’d learned his skills from his father, either Marlin had been a horrible teacher or he wasn’t interested in teaching his son the finer art of business negotiation. There was also no way on earth I would pay double the value to the Butlers. This performance was simply for the enjoyment of watching Butler squirm and providing entertainment to the McGraths.
I turned back to Julia’s father. “Sir, as long as Julia wants Wade to succeed, it will. By buying up the available shares, my hope is to return Wade to the status it enjoyed prior to Herman Wade’s decision to sell shares. Wade would be more of a reckoning force if it were back to a privately held company without outside influence.”
The answer was in Mr. McGrath’s eyes. I’d just offered him a deal he could live with, what he’d strived for since taking the co-CEO position.
“We have debt,” he said. “We still have a January 3rd date to either produce a balloon payment that we can’t afford or to accept a crippling increased interest rate.”
“Gregg,” Mrs. McGrath scolded.
“What, Ana? If you don’t think a man like Mr. Sherman knows everything there is to know about Wade, then you’re the one who’s delusional.”
I spoke, “I was aware of the January 3rd deadline even before you told Julia and she told me. I do my homework.”
“We can’t make it—the balloon payment,” Mr. McGrath said, his head shaking. “We’ll have to accept the increase in interest.” He exhaled and leaned forward. “That too is too much for us to pay. We won’t make it.”
“What are you saying, Dad?” Julia asked. “Is it too late?”
“No, it’s not,” Mrs. McGrath said. “The combination of McGrath and Butler has been planned forever. This was going to restore Wade’s standing. Once our rating was higher, the interest rates would lower.”
“That scenario isn’t happening. Do you have a backup plan for raising your standing?” I asked.
The McGraths looked at one another. Finally, it was Julia’s father who spoke. “We have researchers working on an Alzheimer’s medication that, if the clinical trials go well, will be able to be produced for much less than the one currently applying for approval.”
“I hadn’t heard about that,” I admitted, intrigued.
“Because we haven’t announced it,” Julia’s mother said. “There are advantages to being small. We stay under the radar until we want to be seen.”
“Will you send me your research?”
She sat straighter. “Are you also a biophysicist, Mr. Sherman?”
“No, Mrs. McGrath, I’m a businessman. The shares I just purchased...had those stockholders been made aware of this new medication on the horizon?”
“No,” Butler said, joining the conversation. “It was my father’s belief that if we announced too soon and the wider studies didn’t come out as the earlier and smaller controlled studies had, it would hurt us.”
Marlin Butler knew about the possible future profitability of Wade and chose not to disclose it to the people whose stock he’d arranged to purchase. I wondered if he’d sold the new medication idea to the bigger companies he was courting. That could definitely increase the value of his shares.
“How long until the wider studies will have data to share with the CDC and FDA?” Julia asked.
A smile curled my lips as I watched her take part in this conversation.
Her father answered. “Unfortunately, we can’t know that for sure.” He turned to me. “We just need to hang on.”
My entrepreneurial interest in controlling shares of Wade Pharmaceutical was increasing by the minute. I turned to Julia. “What do you think?”
“She doesn’t have the information,” her mother interjected.
“I can speak for myself,” Julia said. “I don’t have the information. I want it. Send me everything and to Van too. The recent upheaval has made me realize that I do care about Wade. This new information makes me hopeful that I’m not simply asking Van to save a failing company, but that by saving it, we could see the fortunes turn.”
“My father won’t agree to sending the data,” Butler said. “It’s all in-house. We can’t risk a leak.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell this runt what I thought of him and his father. Before I could, Julia stepped in.
“Marlin has a say as long as he maintains his twenty-five percent. That’s all he has, Skylar—a twenty-five-percent say. As I said at the hotel, don’t push me. If you do, I’ll make sure you, your father, and your uncle are permanently removed from the day-to-day running of Wade.”
Logan is involved?
In what capacity?