Chapter 531: Island Real Estate Mogul

Crap. How many corporations and assets did I get when I got the bank as part of Darren’s annual cut as head of all the families?

I can’t believe I hadn’t even bothered to do a deep dive into the corporations and properties owned by the bank versus those given to me directly as payment.

I should probably do as dad and others suggest and keep my dick in my pants.

“I see by your stunned look that you were wholly unaware of your island bank’s holdings that are not part of your portfolio but belong to you now. Unlike the assets in your portfolio, you can sell those that the bank owns without any restrictions. As a bonus, you transfer bank holdings into bank-owned LLCs outside your restricted portfolio. Much like your recent restaurant exchange with your city, you can swap out a toxic asset with the one you custom-designed from your bank holdings. Once the transaction is complete, you dissolve the LLC, and the toxic assets become part of the bank’s holdings. It would help if you discussed this with Elena’s father and your lawyer Paula. From how I understand the process, making the trade this way removed the perpetual ten percent of net profit payments. However, it will still add them to the properties you gain in the swap,” the mansion “butler” explained. “I’ve taken the incentive to locate each property you own on all the Hawaiian islands. If you don’t have other plans, I want to show them to you.”

Damn it! What do I do with all these buildings and land my bank owns? Should I do something creative?

“I know that you and the staff are all well-paid. You’ve managed my and the bank’s assets on the island exceptionally well. We know that I don’t need the money or particularly want more, yet I make it faster than I can spend it. The previous owner placed high demands on you to ensure you had an excellent education and skills. When I was here last, I dumped the responsibility of a group of kids I met briefly on the mansion staff and you. I will get you the number of Alani’s uncle. He will renovate many of the smaller eight to twenty-unit apartment buildings. Since you know more about what my bank owns on the islands, I want those on the staff to get one of the smaller apartment buildings. Have each one renovated, torn down, and rebuilt from the ground up using whatever it costs to do the job correctly. If possible, I would like these to be Christmas Gifts for everyone on staff. You, however, need to find one of the parcels or premium land and build as big of an apartment building or condo complex as will fit on that lot. The top two floors are for you and your family to live,” I told him.

He was stunned and at a loss for words.

When he finally got himself together, I stopped him as soon as he began saying that it was too much.

“I may not know about my bank’s holdings, but I know that you spent some time in prison for a felony for doing something stupid when you were my age. I don’t care. The people who gave the guy that died all the money and assets are way worse than anything you could have done,” I explained. “I want each place to have a reputable management company and always have at least five years of estimated property taxes and insurance premiums in the bank at all times. I don’t want someone to lose the property because they blew the money for taxes or something happened to the place, and they do not have proper insurance coverage. You all deserve something to have for retirement and some extra income, but a posh place to live.”

He laughed and said, “If you insist, David. I’m sure my wife and children won’t object too much. It is refreshing to find someone with your wealth which isn’t a total self-righteous snotty asshole. Your parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins spoke well of you. Some did say quite a bit more than they should have about your level of intimacy with them, but it seems that they initiated everything. I’m not sure if I was in your shoes at that age that I wouldn’t have been as restrained upon knowing they were receptive to my attention.”

I know I had told him to pick out a piece of property to build his condo complex, but when I saw the property on the side of a hill, with two thirty-plus foot waterfalls draining into two beautiful, clear ponds, I told him that I was going to build his condo complex here. It would be a majestic hideaway away from the tourist traffic with forest for half a mile around it on all sides. A nice stretch of infrequently used beach was less than a mile away. We couldn’t own the beach, but we owned the land right up to the edge.

The mansion butler didn’t have any issues with my selection of land for his condos. There were multiple architectural firms with modern condo and apartment building designs. He would have them all provide proposals for his property and those selected for the other people who worked at my mansion.

“I suggest we have a minimum number of years on staff to receive the property gifts, David,” he told me. “We have a lot of young people who work at the mansion for a few months to four years. Some were there to have us pay for their education, and then they left as soon as they graduated. Others found out that it was more demanding than they expected. Your bank owns a significant number of properties. I suggest waiting until they have completed their fifth year of employment before giving anyone the gifts you propose. Likewise, I suggest they cannot sell the property for ten years, possibly twenty. It would aid in ensuring that it isn’t something they liquidate for quick cash. That is likely to happen otherwise. Providing a fund to cover property taxes and insurance may be prudent. As you mentioned, you make millions an hour in interest. I don’t expect you would ever notice. If the staff and I knew how to run apartments and manage condos, we wouldn’t work at your estate. Should you feel extra generous, covering a few years of the management company costs wouldn’t be a bad idea to ensure we don’t fail immediately. I know of some who are exceptional. Those managing your bank-owned properties suck.”

He knows many times more than I do about these things. I might as well let him run with the ball.

“Would it make sense to set them up in LLCs much as the bank did with the previous property owners? My bank will cover the costs of the management company, insurance, and similar requirements. We calculate ten percent of the property’s value and put that into a renovation fund to get them started. The bank will take ten percent off the income to put into the renovation fund and subtract their costs for the property management company, taxes, insurance, utilities, and other costs. What remains is twenty-five percent going into an emergency fund, fifty percent into a retirement account, and the rest to whoever we give the property. If they screw things up, there is that buffer to help them out. I don’t know how it would work, but is there a way to ensure that the property, emergency fund, and retirement fund aren’t assets seized to repay debt or settle financial lawsuits?” I asked. “People screw up. I don’t want some con artist screwing these people over, either. Maybe after they have it for ten years, we will make them a partner in the LLC and start changing the percentage they own over the next ten years?”

“I will give it some thought. I’m not embarrassed to have training wheels for the first ten years of ownership,” the “butler” explained.

I found out that apartment buildings and condo complexes were nothing compared to my other holdings in Hawaii. The butler started taking me around to show me office parks and shopping centers. I got a bit overwhelmed at the sheer number of places I owned on the islands.

When we got to a group of private schools, he pointed me at the door and said, “All yours, boss. I suggest you walk into the high school to have some fun. They offer summer school to anyone who can pay the summer tuition. Even if built like a linebacker, you still have a face that looks younger than your age. All the administration knows is that a corporation owns the schools. They deposit the tuition payments into the account. They submit the documentation for payroll and other running costs to your bank, who wires the funds to the school’s bank account. As with your other bank-owned assets, this one hasn’t had a facelift in a long time. They have made minor improvements, but that has been it. There has been no one controlling many of your bank’s holding for a long time.”

As suggested, I walked into the main office for the high school.

“We don’t give out tardy passes,” the woman at the desk said after a glance at me. “Nor do we permit slovenly attire, even if you are not a student enrolled in our school during the non-summer semesters. We have a strict dress code. You will not be allowed to attend classes dressed as you are.”

I stood there waiting for her to come to the counter to speak with me more directly.

When she did, I said, “That is a relief. I went to high school for the second half of my first year. Didn’t like it and dropped out.”

“I hope you aren’t planning to continue that trend. I doubt your parents would have spent the money to send you here if that was your intention,” she told me.

“Oh, they didn’t send me here. My butler did,” I explained. “I already knew more than they could teach me in high school anyway. Some public schools have come up short on what they can offer beyond the basics. It seems that the colleges felt that way too. I graduated from five at once.”

“I don’t have time for childish games,” she told me.

I replied, “That is good because I’m not a child or playing any games. I would appreciate it if you would ask the headmaster, principal, or whoever is in charge if I could speak with them about the school regarding a business matter.”

She gave me a huff and returned to what she was doing, so I took a seat and waited. Two kids were escorted in by a teacher. I’d seen enough school fights to know they had gone at each other.

They were seated on either side of me.

Both were whispering things back and forth. Eventually, one would start getting up to attack the other. With my arms on the back of the chairs, it was easy to grab their shoulder and push them back down into their seats before they got far. Pulling some energy from them took the fight out for a few minutes. I saw the principal start to come out of their office and then move back to watch through the one-way mirrored window.

“Oh, give it a rest already. Wait until after school, get some pool noodles, and work it out. There is absolutely nothing you need to beat each other black and blue over,” I told them. “Grow up. You both screwed off in school and got stuck in summer school. This place isn’t cheap, and I doubt your parents will be overjoyed if you two get kicked out of here.”

“But he,” one started.

“I said give it a rest already,” I told them.

Both finally slumped down in their chairs.

After a few minutes, they apologized to each other. It sounded sincere to me, but I wasn’t the one that had to address them fighting.

It hadn’t been ten minutes since the principal called the boys into his office when three girls got escorted into the office.

Catfight!

Their shirts were all missing most of the buttons, and only one had a long enough piece of string to tie her bikini top. Of the two other girls, one had nothing under her shirt. Her tits were too big not to have something supporting them. From the red marks on her neck, someone ripped a bikini or halter off her. The last girl had scraps of what had once been a thin tank top. She didn’t need more than that because she was rail-thin.

I saw a table behind the counter with school logo tank tops. On another table were school uniform shirts. It was less than two hundred dollars for three tanks and three uniform shirts, but I gave the office lady ten twenty-dollar bills.

I gave each one a tank tight enough to give them a bit of support without making it hard to breathe and a new button-down shirt.

The skinny one pulled off her shirt right there in the office. She pushed out her tits at me as she made her nipples go hard before making a production of playing with the tank top.

That isn’t going to work, kiddo.

Before she knew what happened, I had her arms up over her head and the tank on her. It got her arms in a button-down shirt and buttoned it with it pulled away from her chest. The only contact I made with her body was her hands.

The one with her bikini top retied it before changing into a tank and shirt.

The final girl blushed heavily before turning away from everyone to change.

“I’m a nudist, have an eleven-year-old and four-year-old daughter, plus I worked at both an underwear and swimsuit clearance outlets when I was fifteen. You don’t have anything I haven’t seen more of than you will in your entire life. Giving the principal and those two boys a show probably isn’t a good idea. There is a bathroom ten feet away,” I told them.

They all blushed when they saw the two boys standing with the principal.

“Call your parents, girls,” he told the three.

I know that look. It sucks to be you.

The boys had already made that call and were waiting for their parents to arrive.

“I’m not sure who you are, but my assistant said you wanted to discuss a business matter. If you handle kids as you did with those five, he explained that I might want to discuss your career opportunities,” he explained.

In his office, he said, “I heard you telling my assistant that you dropped out of high school and then graduated from five colleges. It seems like a bit of a stretch. I want to address that before I discuss anything else with you. Honesty is paramount to establishing any relationship, be it business or personal.”

“That is easy enough. I was in a coma for the first part of my freshman year. I caught up on all the work and aced the finals without going to school. I was in school for the second half of my freshman year. After school started my sophomore year, four of my best friends got t-boned by a truck. Three had severe injuries, and one died technically. A private hospital rushed them to their private hospital. I went with them to be there for my friends,” I started explaining.

He interrupted to ask, “How does one technically die?”

“You have your skull crushed, spine ripped from your brain stem, and head pulled off your spine, but have wires pushed into your heart to make it beat with a respirator to keep your blood oxygenated,” I replied. “The private hospital specializes in advanced brain and spinal repairs. My friend, who was not much more than a blood bag, was another research subject where they couldn’t make her any more dead. Miraculously, they somehow re-attached her spinal cord to her brain, got her breathing and heart beating without machines, and then repaired her brain. It has been a long haul for her, but she recovered most of her memories and almost returned to where she was before the accident. I know you don’t believe a word I say, and I didn’t expect you to believe me. Here is the video, and you can look up the news story. Search for a miracle and save a van of cancer survivor children.”

I linked my phone to the TV on the wall and did the time-lapse from right after Paula’s clothes were removed until she managed to walk a few steps. I showed clips of her being thanked by the cancer survivor kids.

“As a result, I missed most of my sophomore year. I didn’t sit around that entire time. I became a guinea pig for testing their exoskeletons and various techniques to help people re-learn after severe brain damage. When I left there, I found I could speak all languages and somehow reached a grandmaster level of all martial arts. I don’t expect you to believe that either, but it is irrelevant,” I said.

I explained the school testing me. The school board tried to make me start my sophomore year in the fall anyway. He did look up to confirm that I graduated from the five colleges with bachelor’s, master’s, and PhDs due to a unique program. I saw that at least impressed him a bit.

“An inspirational story, but what has that got to do with me and a business proposal?” he asked.

I laughed before I told him, “I never said a proposal. I said a business matter. Long story short, a guy I met a few times died and gave me all his wealth. That included hundreds of corporations, assets, resorts, and even an island, or ten. A bank used exclusively by extremely wealthy families worldwide came with one of the islands. I only learned today that all bank-owned corporations and properties were separate from everything in my portfolio. I know, it sucks to be me, right? Well, one of those corporations owns this private school. It appears that whoever built the school long ago defaulted on the loans taken out to build and maintain it, so the bank foreclosed and added it to their assets. My name is David Jones. You can call the people who write the checks to verify what I told you.”