Chapter 2: Takeover Bid

The employees’ share co-operative was announced to the staff and received a less than rapturous welcome when the figures were announced. Most of those eligible thought the sums involved were trivial; most of those excluded thought that all the staff should be eligible on the first day they joined the company.

David was surprised when Colin asked him to meet him immediately when he walked into work two days after the announcement.

“What’s the problem, Colin? Are the natives getting restless?” he asked.

“I think you had better sit down,” Colin started.

“Am I being fired?” was David’s response, “You have a very serious face.”

“It is serious,” Colin said, “We have a takeover bid.”

“From whom?”

“I can’t tell you that because I don’t know. It came through a firm of commercial lawyers on behalf of an undisclosed client. Basically it values the company at well over sixty million.”

“That’s nearly double our valuation in the employees’ scheme,” said David.

“Yes.”

“What happens to the board of directors, and more importantly to the employees?”

“We all stay with suitable pay rises as part of the board of the new subsidiary,” Colin said, “Even Frank as a non-executive director. I get to sit on the main board also, but you get to be Technical Director. All the existing staff stay if they want to. That means you running the three technical sections and basically an end to your actual direct involvement in projects, but you get a posh office and a secretary of your choosing.”

“That’s not fair to me, or to the other sections. I am not capable of doing that and I certainly don’t want to try to do it. I’d go mad driving a desk all day and pushing timesheets about; I’m just a nerd who happened to be the first one here.”

Colin sighed, “I was afraid you would say that. I don’t know what the reaction will be if you won’t go along with it. It could scupper the whole deal.”

David thought for a moment and said, “That’s silly. Nobody’s indispensable, especially in a big company. What if I walk under the proverbial bus tomorrow? It wouldn’t be the end of the company.”

“Do you know how much you are insured for as a key employee against meeting that bus?”

David responded, “A few thousand I expect.”

He was amazed when Colin said, “Millions, plural.”

“Why? There are several others here as good as me?”

Colin looked shocked, “Who else could have done the Phantasma project? Give me a name.”

“That was just luck that I chanced on the answer,” said David.

“Rubbish, and you know it,” Colin replied, “Everyone said it was logically impossible. You did it.”

“Correction, only the Ministry said it was logically impossible. They were wrong, and that is why firms like ours exist, to do things that civil servants don’t have the imagination to do.” Thinking furiously he came to the conclusion, I can go along with it for a while, then get out with my money. Maybe the eight or so months this project will take and then I’ll be free with near enough fifteen million to play with. Or I could contrive to lose my clearance. The classic route to that is to stand for parliament, and not as a candidate for a big party so no risk of being elected.