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Authors: Charles Martin
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years, and there was much more at stake here than profit and loss. These folks were tied to the land. It was as much a part of them as their black hair and suntanned skin. Simply put, it wasn’t for sale. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not for any amount of money.
If Marshall had a firm grip on his money, he’d met his match in the actual five fathers, and in Alejandro, their leader. When he reluctantly increased his price to twelve cents on the dollar, they filled up two five-gallon buckets with fresh cow manure. The first they dumped over the attorney’s head. They second they poured inside his car. All of it. And it wasn’t the solid, pick-it-up-with-your-hand kind. It was the other kind.
Marshall didn’t take too kindly to this form of non-negotiation, and it didn’t take him long to find the chink in their armor. Through a series of shell companies created for the sole purpose of bankrupting Cinco Padres, Marshall and Pickering and Sons, with Brendan driving the bus and me as their hatchet man, bought the entire year’s production of several South American competitors and then began selling that coffee at a reduced rate to all the buyers of Cinco Padres coffee. Naturally, the five fathers had to follow suit. Wanting to inflict more and greater pain in the shortest amount of time, Marshall bought the bank that the fathers used to finance their operations during lean years. Given the growing losses and their weakening share of the market, their open lines of credit were “reassessed,” and when the dust settled, they were required to put up twice the collateral for half the credit. The result reduced their buying power and hence their profit margin. It also meant that the bank owned more of their land than they did.
To Marshall, Nicaraguan coffee was a passing fancy. Idle thinking that filtered through the smoke-filled air of post-dinner conversations. It occupied his thoughts like golf or poker or the latest and greatest wine in his collection.
Marshall had little—correct that, he had no—regard for what he was doing to the generations of families in his wake. He couldn’t have cared less because they, their lives, and their problems never occurred to him. He was sitting behind a desk in Boston wearing a $10,000 suit and $1,500 dollar shoes, picking out color combinations and textures for his next two-hundred-foot yacht. Their problems never entered his cranium—as was his right given his money. Or so he had convinced himself. In short, if someone else’s life sucked, that was their issue. Not his. Welcome to Earth.
My role was a bit closer to the tip of the spear. I spent months in Central America, was constantly in communication with the people of Nicaragua, but I never once thought to learn Spanish. Had no intention of learning to communicate with these people. My thinking was, If they want to do business with me, they can learn to speak my language. The only thing I need to know is how to count their money. I’ve got enough to worry about. I dealt with those around me like crumbs on a table. Tasked with selling tons of coffee, I did. At the lowest rate I could obtain and to anyone who would buy it. Retailers loved me because I nearly gave it away. For the Five Fathers, my business method was death by a thousand cuts. I remember walking out onto the porch of my hotel room, propping my feet on the railing, staring out across León, and laughing when I received a report that they were now delivering coffee via horse-drawn cart as they couldn’t afford gas for the trucks. Why? Because it meant I was that much closer to leaving this godforsaken place. When I called in to report, Marshall affectionately referred to me as “The Butcher of Boston” as I was “single-handedly gutting the Cinco Padres.” He could almost taste the beans. I didn’t really care what he called me or what happened to these people, and I didn’t care about their Mango Café or their country.
I knew we had them on the ropes when
If Marshall had a firm grip on his money, he’d met his match in the actual five fathers, and in Alejandro, their leader. When he reluctantly increased his price to twelve cents on the dollar, they filled up two five-gallon buckets with fresh cow manure. The first they dumped over the attorney’s head. They second they poured inside his car. All of it. And it wasn’t the solid, pick-it-up-with-your-hand kind. It was the other kind.
Marshall didn’t take too kindly to this form of non-negotiation, and it didn’t take him long to find the chink in their armor. Through a series of shell companies created for the sole purpose of bankrupting Cinco Padres, Marshall and Pickering and Sons, with Brendan driving the bus and me as their hatchet man, bought the entire year’s production of several South American competitors and then began selling that coffee at a reduced rate to all the buyers of Cinco Padres coffee. Naturally, the five fathers had to follow suit. Wanting to inflict more and greater pain in the shortest amount of time, Marshall bought the bank that the fathers used to finance their operations during lean years. Given the growing losses and their weakening share of the market, their open lines of credit were “reassessed,” and when the dust settled, they were required to put up twice the collateral for half the credit. The result reduced their buying power and hence their profit margin. It also meant that the bank owned more of their land than they did.
To Marshall, Nicaraguan coffee was a passing fancy. Idle thinking that filtered through the smoke-filled air of post-dinner conversations. It occupied his thoughts like golf or poker or the latest and greatest wine in his collection.
Marshall had little—correct that, he had no—regard for what he was doing to the generations of families in his wake. He couldn’t have cared less because they, their lives, and their problems never occurred to him. He was sitting behind a desk in Boston wearing a $10,000 suit and $1,500 dollar shoes, picking out color combinations and textures for his next two-hundred-foot yacht. Their problems never entered his cranium—as was his right given his money. Or so he had convinced himself. In short, if someone else’s life sucked, that was their issue. Not his. Welcome to Earth.
My role was a bit closer to the tip of the spear. I spent months in Central America, was constantly in communication with the people of Nicaragua, but I never once thought to learn Spanish. Had no intention of learning to communicate with these people. My thinking was, If they want to do business with me, they can learn to speak my language. The only thing I need to know is how to count their money. I’ve got enough to worry about. I dealt with those around me like crumbs on a table. Tasked with selling tons of coffee, I did. At the lowest rate I could obtain and to anyone who would buy it. Retailers loved me because I nearly gave it away. For the Five Fathers, my business method was death by a thousand cuts. I remember walking out onto the porch of my hotel room, propping my feet on the railing, staring out across León, and laughing when I received a report that they were now delivering coffee via horse-drawn cart as they couldn’t afford gas for the trucks. Why? Because it meant I was that much closer to leaving this godforsaken place. When I called in to report, Marshall affectionately referred to me as “The Butcher of Boston” as I was “single-handedly gutting the Cinco Padres.” He could almost taste the beans. I didn’t really care what he called me or what happened to these people, and I didn’t care about their Mango Café or their country.
I knew we had them on the ropes when
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