Chapter 287 Small Vacation at Home 5
"You don"t have to sign any such deal, Jake, I know you"re just doing it to help me, I just ask that when I can afford to buy the stock you can sell it to me."
Clara understood that it was not right to do a friend who was doing her a favor by signing any kind of contract, yet she was determined to buy all the stock she could back to not have that kind of problem.
Even though she understood that she would first have to raise money to buy her rival"s 34 percent, it would take her many years to succeed, not to mention that after this crisis had pa.s.sed she would have to re-invest in her business properly.
Also, she can"t keep asking Tiffany"s help to buy that 34 percent from the rival company, after all, Tiffany also had to take care of her company for years to come, she knew well that her friend lost two years of potential company growth and even risked being arrested to help her buy these stocks.
"Fine, I"ll invest in your company just so you no longer have to worry about Robert selling the shares to the compet.i.tor, but I don"t have much interest in continuing to be a shareholder if you can buy those shares would be better for me."
Since Clara was his friend, Jake decided to be honest with her and to tell him that he was not interested in her company stock, after all, he would surely be losing money that could be made quickly if he invested in stocks.
Clara was really surprised by Jake"s lack of interest in her company, she knew that her company could not compare with Matthew"s company that Jake had invested in, but she was proud of how her company was developing.
What she forgot was that even though Jake had 5 percent of Matthew"s company stock, in fact, he had not invested in it but had gained the shares, and Jake had to do some work so that Matthew"s company would make the profit that it had now.
If Jake owned a larger percentage of Clara"s company he could even advertise for free even after joining the NBA, so Clara"s company would save hundreds of millions of dollars in a few years.
With that 10 percent he had bought himself, Jake certainly wouldn"t do free advertising, otherwise, he could end up lowering his own marketing value and other companies wouldn"t want to give millions of sponsors.h.i.+p.
After that, they talked about a few more things and Clara called her lawyer to immediately contact Robert to sell the shares as stated in the contract that said Robert"s father, knowing that somehow Clara had gotten money to buy his shares, Robert didn"t like it.
In fact, he thought that in those years Clara and his father had helped him, after all, he would have sold these shares a few years ago for less than 28 million to Clara"s rival company just because he needed money to invest in his own company.
With his father"s contract, he didn"t know, Robert would have to wait 5 years to sell the shares he had and couldn"t make any money on it when he knew that he was very angry with his father and Clara.
But it turned out that in those two years he received $ 7 million from his profit share and his shares had appreciated, so he made a lot of money on that if he continued to receive that money he would not have thought of selling Clara"s company stock.
If it took 3 more years to buy his shares as stated in the contract he could receive at least 10 million more and sell his shares for much more money, unfortunately, he was forced to accept what was in the contract since deciding to sell his shares.
In fact, Robert can"t even see Clara and Jake and just got his lawyer"s contract and signed in to later receive the money, at the current quote he received 33 million and would soon receive his 1996 profit share.
Seeing this much money Robert was happy again, now he could invest in his company quietly and not have to get involved in these problems with Clara anymore, as he had promised Robert called the company that had thought of selling his shares and reported that Clara had bought his shares.
The other company then realized that they would no longer have the opportunity to acquire Clara"s company, but they were already expecting it when they could not buy Robert"s shares, anyway, they would not be losing money on it.
Just like Robert they had also made a lot of money in those two years, $ 24 million was as much as they had made in those two years, it was almost 10 percent of the stock they paid two years ago.
Even if they would no longer receive their profit share if Clara"s company went back to investing, they would still receive a lot in selling their shares back to Clara in a few years, so they would only profit from that business.
Jake thus received 10 percent of the shares of Clara"s company and had as much as Tiffany, he would still receive his sponsors.h.i.+p agreement for a few years and then no longer renew and at that time it was better than Clara could invest more in the company and prepare to keep up the good sales without Jake.
He thought about having a celebration dinner with Clara, but she had to go back to work to finish organizing the financial statement as the year was ending and start planning the investments that would be made next year.
Jake understood that Clara wanted to make up for a lost time in those two years and Clara had been very grateful to him and even wept with relief when she saw that she would no longer have this problem to think about for years to come, it was a huge relief to her.
Now she had finally severed the ties she had with Robert and never wanted to have any contact with her ex-husband again, she now had to keep working to be more successful with her company.
So Jake called Tiffany to tell her the good news, he considered calling Tiffany during the negotiation, but things have happened very quickly since Jake decided to buy the stock and he bought from Robert.
He didn"t tell Tiffany what it was, but she accepted dinner with Jake because she thought he just wanted to talk to her since he hadn"t come to Miami in a long time and they couldn"t talk in that time.
"Hi Jake, how many months we haven"t seen each other, how have you been?"
"Very well, things at university have been going very well for me, even better than I expected, and with you, all right?"
"Yes, with me everything has been great, especially in the company since you did so much this year sales have been better than ever, luckily our company sells sports drinks so even without much investment as long as we have stock we can meet market demand."
Tiffany was really very happy with all this, her company can"t invest in the last few years because she was trying to help Clara, but even without investing in the publicity that Jake gave her company they had sold a lot in those years.
Because of this her company had almost reached Clara"s market value even though it had a much smaller initial investment, investors were very excited about her company and so her company shares were very traded in the market.
Especially because in the last two years she had paid dividends, and they were values even higher than the value of the shares because she was not holding the valuation of the company as Clara did, so this year her company would value even more.
Jake was very happy to hear that, he knew well that in the beverage market and even across the food business it was very difficult for smaller companies to grow and develop without being under pressure from the larger companies.
Luckily Tiffany"s company had chosen the sports drinks market that went a little out of the way of the biggest brands in the market and had a lot of market and consumer attention because of Jake.
So it was as if they had protection to grow in the market, after a few more years they could end up becoming a billion-valued company like Matthew"s.
"Glad to hear you and your company doing so well these months, I have some good news to give you, Tiffany."
"Oh, so you didn"t just call me here to talk, what"s the good news?"
"I received money from Matthew"s company profit-sharing this year and as I had nothing to do with the money I decided to buy the shares of Clara"s company that were in Robert"s hands."
"Today I went to talk to Clara and already bought Robert"s stock, now Clara is free of her ex-husband and your company and your company can go back to investing again without having to worry."
Tiffany was shocked for a while and only then understood what Jake was saying, she couldn"t describe what she was feeling, it was so hard in those two years to have to stop investing in the company and suffer some shareholder pressure to help Clara not lose the company.
Now all of a sudden all the problems were resolved in no time, it was great news for her and Clara, but Tiffany felt for a moment that everything she had been through these past two years was for nothing.
"I thought I"d call you to the negotiation, Tiffany, but it all happened so quickly and I didn"t even have to meet Robert to buy the stock, then Clara had to go back to work and I decided to tell you the good news."
Jake didn"t understand how Tiffany was feeling, he just helped because he could and didn"t want to see Clara and Tiffany companies wasting precious time growing in the market just to buy stocks he could easily buy.
Even if he had to lose hundreds of millions of dollars if he had invested his stocks, it was worth it to have a clear conscience that his friends were doing well and to be able to play basketball quietly.