Authors: Tom Connolly
“But this is not,” Bridge began protesting. Had he been allowed to finish he would have said, “Right. I’m Catholic in name only.”
He was stopped at “Not.”
“I’m aware you’re not what we call a Sunday Catholic,” the Cardinal went on. “That’s good. Gideon, you practice Christ’s teachings every day by the love you have shown for your most vulnerable fellow men and women.”
“No, this is not right. I’ll be a terrible representative of the Church. You’ll be ridiculed for giving something like this to me,” Bridge again protested, and he confessed, “I’m a sinner.”
“Yes you are,” Archbishop Foley said, “as is Mrs. Kiernan, Commissioner Flaherty, me, and even Cardinal Quinn, although maybe less so, Cardinal?”
“Not at all, John,” Quinn laughed. “We all sin, each in our own way. These matters we can take up with God. He forgives us; He knows we sin. He loves us anyway. And while you sin, Gideon, the contradiction in your life, in all our lives, is that we act as Jesus instructed us. You reach out your hand to your fellow man knowing that he is sinning: taking drugs, drinking, stealing, and whatever else. It is why, in that ring, under that glass at the center is a relic of our church. A relic from the time Jesus walked on this earth. It is a fragment from the burial robe of Jesus.”
Bridges eyes moistened; he no longer rejected this gift. His heart began to race at the same time his knees got weak. Cardinal Quinn walked over to him as he sobbed and put his arms around him.
Chapter 40
Leonard Crane’s office with the Brunswick Fund was at 515 Madison Ave. When he got the call from Alice Kraft, he suggested they meet in the coffee shop at the Roosevelt Hotel, about halfway between where she worked at Blackthorn Investments, a boutique investment bank, with offices in New York on Sixth Ave at 44th St. It was the “baby call” they had often joked about when they worked together at Blackthorn. If you ever get the “baby call,” you drop everything and come as fast as you can since the baby’s coming. In their language it meant there is something so hot it would be life changing.
When he put the receiver down, he was reaching for his suit coat. An administrative aid asked him a question as he passed her desk, and he put his hand out, palm facing up, accompanied by, “Hold it; I’ll be back in one hour.” The elevator cooperated by waiting on the 37th floor; he pushed the button and the door opened. He was out the front door less than one minute after he hung up. His pace down Madison shifted from a fast walk to running-for-the-train quick. He was there in less than ten minutes. Alice arrived at the first floor coffee shop during the eleventh minute.
He had seated himself at a small, round patio table, and when he saw her smiling face, he rose to greet her.
“Hi, I’m glad you called; I was beginning to miss you,” he said
“Nice try, Lenny, but you will be glad I called,” Alice said, managing a smile.
“What does nice try mean?” a puzzled Crane asked.
“There was nothing to miss. We worked together. We conspired together. We just never got to consummate the conspiracy…until now.”
“The first baby call.”
“And if things go right, the only one we will ever need,” she finished.
Their stories were similar; they were cut from the same cloth. They had worked on trading desks in the same group for Blackthorn. The managing directors at Blackthorn protected their planned actions much more so than other firms with trading operations. Traders had little latitude but to execute as quickly as possible the tactics that their floor directors gave them.
Over drinks one night, many drinks, they drew up the baby call plan. If there was ever a piece of exceptional information that came across their desks before it went public and they could find a way to share it, execute on it independently and profit greatly, secretly then they would make the call. As long as they worked for Blackthorn that would not have been possible without bringing in yet another party on the outside. With Crane out on his own at Brunswick Fund, it could work. At his going away party, again over drinks, they toasted to the day the baby call would be made.
“So, what is it, Alice. What’s so hot,” Crane began.
“It’s the biggest heads-up I have ever heard of and naturally can’t act on it without someone else. One of our clients just got three spectacular orders from their customers. It will be out in three days, four at the most. Blackthorn has asked them to sit on it while they buy up every share they can,” Kraft finished, taking a deep breath.
A waitress came over, and they held up their discussion to order coffees.
Once the waitress stepped away, Crane began again. “Who is it; what’s the deal?”
“I need your help,” she said
“I know that.” Crane said thinking to himself, well yeah, baby call; of course you need my help. “How do you want me to help?”
“I want a significant consideration,” Alice said
“Alice, it depends.”
“Lenny, this is bigger than anything either of us has ever seen.”
“What then.”
“A considerable amount.”
“What’s considerable?” he continued parrying.
“Twenty-five percent of the profits.”
“Ridiculous, we could never do that much,” Lenny the Liar said truthfully.
“I have others I can go to. I came to you because you know how to do these things,” Alice said in a way that let him feel in control.
“I can set up accounts for the transfer, Alice, but not that much.”
“What will you offer me?” she said, a bit exasperated.
“Depends,’ he added equally exasperated over the unknown.
“Damn it, Lenny, we don’t have time for this. It is a scorcher and because of the industry trading, it will most likely not attract a lot of attention.”
It got Crane thinking…could he put this together himself. Maybe. He knew Blackthorn’s investment banking clients, he knew their industry expertise, and he knew most of the clients Alice worked with. It was obviously in the solar industry, her strength, but who.
“I’ll talk to my partners. But you have to give me more than this.”
“I thought you had control?” she asked somewhat surprised.
“I do.”
“Then let’s make the deal right here, right now!” she said raising her voice.
The waitress, paused, as she was about to put the coffees down, not wanting to interrupt. Alice pulled her hands, which had been flailing, back so she could place the cups down. She thanked her and the waitress left.
“Ten percent of the net,” he said, overriding his deal-doing capabilities.
“It’s worth more than that,” Kraft insisted.
“How much do you figure I can buy?”
“Three to four million shares at ten.”
“Ten.” He had it; a solar stock that Blackthorn was heavy into had to be Rocket Solar. He had to stay focused.
“And what do you think it will go to?” he asked matter of factly.
“Twenty in two days, that’s what your buddy Sid Rogers says.”
“Sid’s driving this?” Crane said. It was almost too good to be true. He could take the whole thing right out from underneath the bastard Rogers, the bastard that drove him out of Blackthorn.
“He and the client exec on the investment banking side, they’re buying shares, lots.”
So much for separation of church and state, Crane thought. It was one of the biggest lies on the street; that there was even the slightest separation of investment banking and research from the trading side of the house.
Alice decided to press the issue. “When you hear what’s going down, you’ll agree.”
“I need the afternoon. By five I’ll get back to you.” Lenny lied. He needed every moment to drive this. While Alice saw this as her opportunity, it definitely was Lenny’s chance to score very big.
Alice misread the stall, “OK, but here’s what I want. At least 10 percent, plus one million. The one million must be deposited within four days in this Swiss account under the name Nora Hodge,” and she handed him a piece of paper with the notation, “UBS account 19-24601.”
“Who’s Nora Hodge?” Lenny said, now humoring her.
“It was my mother’s maiden name; I set the account up last year, preparing for a day like today. And, the 10 percent within a month after you sell,” she said confidently.
“And you must begin buying tonight; otherwise, you’ll lose some of the high profit. Lenny, this is so good. It can be worth forty million to you guys. For four days work, maybe two weeks selling it out. Asking for three to four million isn’t too much, is it?” she said confidently, but tailed off with “is it?”
“Alright then, let me get working on it,” he said conclusively
“Lenny, here’s my cell phone number, let me have yours. These are the only phones we should use since they are looking at everything after Galleon.”
“You’re right, here’s mine. I’ll call you by five.” He handed her his card.
From the time he left the Roosevelt till he showed up in Edward Wheelwright’s office, nine minutes had passed, and Leonard Crane was out of breath as he closed Wheelwright’s door.
Chapter 41
There’s a point in your life when you openly talk about your dreams and what you hope to accomplish.
There is a time somewhere after that you realize you’re only here for so long and there are only so many prime years. Then you do one of two things—you pick up the pace or you give up.
Edward Wheelwright was picking up the pace. He was behind in the race. His father’s career got cut short at Oceans Bank when he might have risen to the top. All of Wheelwright’s friends were “there” where Edward wanted to be. He could feel the tug of failure, and every time he did he slapped it away. But it was there—the fear of failure, the failure to achieve, but most clearly, the failure to keep up with his friends whose wealth now far outshone the Wheelwright’s.
Once the revised charter for Brunswick Fund had been approved for hedge fund status, Wheelwright set out on the search for investors beyond the funding of forty million put up by the seven original partners. Sebastian Ball controlled roughly 30 percent of the fund as he put up his and Tray’s additional assessment of two million each—which he did tell Tray about and which Tray objected to but Sebastian halted further discussion, telling Tray they could settle up later after profits. “For the time being,” he told Tray, “it’s important that you concentrate on killing Taliban.”
Each of the other partners came up with the two million assessment, mostly from their own personal funds as their parents had been transferring large sums of wealth to them each year as the very rich do. Only Parker Barnes had difficulty gathering the funds. His father was one of the few not bought into the transfer of great wealth to the young, and his father believed that young Barnes had to earn it from his own merit. Jonathan Barnes did not go along with much of what the Brunswick School group did with their wealth. He viewed it as taking initiative away from the young.
Since young Barnes was now deeply invested in Barnes Construction as a corporate vice president and managing their New York City properties, he did have considerable access to funds and made four payments into Brunswick Fund of five hundred thousand dollars each, the signature approval level he possessed. The journal entries showed up as property purchases, but the funds were not retrievable in the event Barnes needed to repatriate them back to the company since there was a three-year tie up required with the Brunswick Fund terms. Since Barnes Construction found itself flush with new projects and revenues hitting record levels, Parker saw there would be no issues.
Wheelwright also had tasked the seven to identify potential investors in family, friends and businesses to gather an additional ten million in investments for Brunswick Fund to bring it to a respectable fifty million dollars, which Edward figured would be substantial enough to attract very large funds to off-load a portion of their risks with Brunswick Fund, particularly since they had a track record of successful growth. Sebastian Ball was so committed to Brunswick Fund he added the ten million from his personal funds.
In Wheelwright’s initial discussion with Kish Moira and Lenny Crane, they took inventory of which clients they would be bringing with them and in what amounts would they be investing. This discussion yielded more than they expected: Wheelwright had five clients, including a university endowment, which together brought forty million. Kishenlal was bringing three of his former team members with him and between the four brought eight clients and fifty-five million in investments. Lenny Crane had two former team members from Blackthorn join him and twelve million between the three.
Over the course of the next several months, the more moneyed members of Brunswick Fund, namely Sebastian Ball, Winston Trout, and Gideon Bridge, also scouted up clients for the fund to the tune of 240 million. Four hundred fifteen million dollars in total was very good for a new hedge fund, but nowhere near the likes of Blackthorn or Steven Cohen’s former SAC whose assets under management were in the twenty billion dollar range and in the new form (after cheating) still amounted to fifteen billion.
Other topics that Edward Wheelwright focused constantly on besides sources of funds were sources of leads and where to put the money in the fund. There were four parts of the firm—marketing and bringing money in, investing and analysis of where to put the money, technology and the tools for investing and reporting, and general administration of the firm like compliance, finance and personnel. In those first months, Edward and Kish hired eight additional staff bringing Brunswick Fund up to twenty-two members in total with the core focused on investing and trading.