A few hours later, and no sign of my wife, I realized that my conference call with the investment bank and our client had already started. I walked over to Amanda's office, and she motioned for me to come in quietly and sit down at the table. Amanda muted the phone, and explained who was on, and quickly recapped the call for me. She let the call know that I had come in and I apologized for being late. Samantha was totally enamored with Amanda, watching her every move. Six years and she didn't show one iota of interest in what I did during the day, and after knowing Amanda for less than twenty-four hours, she was acting like an apprentice.
I was actually jealous of Amanda, who seemed to have my wife's total attention. We started to discuss the financial aspects of the transaction and I decided to take charge. I quickly started to discuss some analyst valuations of the target corporation and where a bid would be placed. I reached for support from the bank's analyst, who backed me up. I had set the parameters for the deal.
On the other end of the phone, WTI's CFO asked Amanda for her opinion.
Amanda stood up and took a single page off of her desk. She began to chip away at the analyst's numbers - the same numbers I just supported. She convinced everyone that sales would be coming in lower than any of the analysts expected, due to macroeconomic forecasts. She walked back and forth while talking to the speakerphone, building her case better than most trial lawyers. When she was done, it was obvious to everyone on the call that we weren't going to have to pay market rates, and that we actually had a motivated seller.
When Amanda came to her conclusion, Samantha almost jumped up and clapped. Even without understanding what was being said, she could tell, from Amanda's confidence, that she had just made the most significant point of the call. The CEO then asked Amanda to call him in his office, without the other participants on the call. She walked over to her desk, dialed, and sat back in her chair while discussing the intricacies of the deal with him. Only hearing one side of the conversation, I wasn't sure exactly what they were discussing. "They won't go there", "I think we can take care of that", and other vague comments gave me no clues to grasp at.
Amanda said, "Well, Paul," as she paused, comfortable calling him by his first name, "do you want me to tell them, or will you?" She smiled and said, "Ok, I'll drop the bomb." Walking over to the speakerphone, she re-joined the call. She confirmed that the senior partner of the investment bank was on the phone. She addressed him, "I'm sorry, but WTI has advised me that they are terminating your involvement with this transaction. You will be paid your retainer fee, but not any transaction fees. And let me remind you that if a single word of our strategy leaks before this deal is closed, this will be the last deal you ever touch."
Paul came on the phone and said "and with that, I think we should end this call." Just like that, it was done. Amanda had just refuted my strategy. And come up with a better one. And fired a prestigious investment bank on the spot. Which doubled our advisement fee. All of this in front of my wife. I wanted to crawl into a hole.
"I'm sorry, Robert, but I thought you had read my agenda for the meeting. I didn't mean to make you look bad," she apologized. "I'm just glad I was able to minimize the damage." The damage that I had caused. "I think we should celebrate," she said, while pulling a bottle of champagne out of the refrigerator in her office.
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