Read Online The Twain Maxim by Clem Chambers - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Clem Chambers
Ads: Link
and Forex moved as the natural flow of events, Jim believed, which suggested what would kick off next. To him it was all obvious, like the next note in a simple tune or the fate of the cute dog in this summer’s Hollywood blockbuster. It wasn’t often that the dog snuffed it and it was equally rare for Jim to find himself in a losing trade. Sometimes the charts didn’t make sense, but when they did he might as well have drawn them himself.
Trading stopped him thinking about Jane, which was more important to him than the money that was pelting down on him in a cash monsoon. The trading software blotted out her smiling muddy face.
9
Sebastian got up and walked out of the meeting, his phone pressed tightly to his ear. He was speaking to Ralph, Barron’s broker.
“Would you like to cash out now?” said the broker. “The pre-IPO money-raising kicks off today. It’s at two hundred and fifty per cent of the pre-pre-IPO price and we can bid you a two hundred per cent profit in cash for your holding.”
A two-hundred-thousand-pound profit was a nice hit, he thought, but from the serious face he was pulling, he looked as though he was receiving bad news. “What’s the IPO price going to be?”
“A fifty to a hundred per cent uplift,” said the broker.
“So if I hold on I’m up for between three hundred and seventy-five and half a million pounds,” he said.
“No guarantees,” said the voice. “We’re happy to let you out here.”
Sure, thought Sebastian. You bastards want it all for yourselves. Coming out with half a million pounds from an investment of a hundred thousand would be a tidy result. Now that Jim wasn’t on-side any more, pickings from the bank would be a lot thinner. His bonanza was coming quickly to an end and he had to make up the slack elsewhere. He had taken on an enormous bank loan and bought back the familyestate, paying way over the odds for it, from the money-grubbing farmers who had blighted the land like environmental vandals. But when he had done it, the end of the world had been nigh and his bonus, thanks to Jim’s supernatural trading, obscene. Even so, the upkeep of the newly renovated historic pile, as his forebears had found out, was stratospheric. Keeping the thing up to muster required riches, rather than wealth, and his million-pound salary didn’t stretch that far.
But he had ways and means of stretching his incomings, this being one. He had a bit of capital to play with and, for now, a whole lot of credit, thanks to his employer. He was a bright boy and he had the strategy worked out.
“Roll my position into the pre-IPO.”
“You could,” said the broker, “but we’re looking for more money and if you want to be on-side you’ll need to toss in another couple of hundred thousand.”
“Really?” he said. “That’s a little unexpected.”
“You know how it works,” said the broker, condescending.
Sebastian didn’t. He’d never done a mining stock before and this had been a recommendation from an Old Etonian friend. Sebastian was a bulge-bracket banker, not some spivvy small-cap brokerage man. A further 50 to 100 per cent profit on a bigger stake would see his investment grow to between seven hundred thousand and a million pounds. That would be quite a killing.
And Mycock was a legend. He’d heard the stories. He’d met the man.
“OK, put me down for another two hundred grand.”
“Right you are,” said the broker.
*
Baz looked happy sitting in the chair by the hotel window, the Manila sunset behind him. Normally he wouldn’t have answered the phone but it was his broker. He was in the final stretch of part one of the project: the flotation of his mining fiction. Once the pre-IPO was complete, the company would float on the London AIM market and the first slug of the big money would pour in. Ostensibly the initial money raised was to develop the mine, but in fact it would go into his bank account via a series of fictitious mining-services
Trading stopped him thinking about Jane, which was more important to him than the money that was pelting down on him in a cash monsoon. The trading software blotted out her smiling muddy face.
9
Sebastian got up and walked out of the meeting, his phone pressed tightly to his ear. He was speaking to Ralph, Barron’s broker.
“Would you like to cash out now?” said the broker. “The pre-IPO money-raising kicks off today. It’s at two hundred and fifty per cent of the pre-pre-IPO price and we can bid you a two hundred per cent profit in cash for your holding.”
A two-hundred-thousand-pound profit was a nice hit, he thought, but from the serious face he was pulling, he looked as though he was receiving bad news. “What’s the IPO price going to be?”
“A fifty to a hundred per cent uplift,” said the broker.
“So if I hold on I’m up for between three hundred and seventy-five and half a million pounds,” he said.
“No guarantees,” said the voice. “We’re happy to let you out here.”
Sure, thought Sebastian. You bastards want it all for yourselves. Coming out with half a million pounds from an investment of a hundred thousand would be a tidy result. Now that Jim wasn’t on-side any more, pickings from the bank would be a lot thinner. His bonanza was coming quickly to an end and he had to make up the slack elsewhere. He had taken on an enormous bank loan and bought back the familyestate, paying way over the odds for it, from the money-grubbing farmers who had blighted the land like environmental vandals. But when he had done it, the end of the world had been nigh and his bonus, thanks to Jim’s supernatural trading, obscene. Even so, the upkeep of the newly renovated historic pile, as his forebears had found out, was stratospheric. Keeping the thing up to muster required riches, rather than wealth, and his million-pound salary didn’t stretch that far.
But he had ways and means of stretching his incomings, this being one. He had a bit of capital to play with and, for now, a whole lot of credit, thanks to his employer. He was a bright boy and he had the strategy worked out.
“Roll my position into the pre-IPO.”
“You could,” said the broker, “but we’re looking for more money and if you want to be on-side you’ll need to toss in another couple of hundred thousand.”
“Really?” he said. “That’s a little unexpected.”
“You know how it works,” said the broker, condescending.
Sebastian didn’t. He’d never done a mining stock before and this had been a recommendation from an Old Etonian friend. Sebastian was a bulge-bracket banker, not some spivvy small-cap brokerage man. A further 50 to 100 per cent profit on a bigger stake would see his investment grow to between seven hundred thousand and a million pounds. That would be quite a killing.
And Mycock was a legend. He’d heard the stories. He’d met the man.
“OK, put me down for another two hundred grand.”
“Right you are,” said the broker.
*
Baz looked happy sitting in the chair by the hotel window, the Manila sunset behind him. Normally he wouldn’t have answered the phone but it was his broker. He was in the final stretch of part one of the project: the flotation of his mining fiction. Once the pre-IPO was complete, the company would float on the London AIM market and the first slug of the big money would pour in. Ostensibly the initial money raised was to develop the mine, but in fact it would go into his bank account via a series of fictitious mining-services
Similar Books
