Stephen W. Frey - The takeover

Corporate financier Frey's debut novel concerns a secret society of powerful businessmen who attempt to engineer a large-scale economic disaster to topple the President.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The unlikely hero of this first novel, an investment banker with (gasp!) a conscience, risks all in probing a crooked takeover scheme. Plans for a motion picture from Paramount are underway.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The Takeover [036-4.8]

By: Stephen W. Frey

Synopsis:

A hotshot investment banker is about to organize the largest corporate takeover the world has ever seen in this New York Times bestseller.

But there's more than meets the eye to this megadeal, and he soon finds himself caught in a web of political intrigue and murder--a web spun by a powerful secret society who will stop at nothing to change the course of history.

DUTTON Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Books USA Inc 375

Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Books Ltd, 27

Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3132 Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England First published by Dutton, an imprint of Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc. Distributed in Canada by McClelland & Stewart Inc. First Printing, August, 1995

Copyright, 1995 All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America Set in Janson Designed by Julian Hamer PUBLISHER'S NOTE This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

For my wife, Lil, and our daughters, Christina and Ashley.

You mean so much to me.

PROLOGUE February 1992

Life was good. Andrew Falcon was about to come into a tremendous amount of money - he hoped. Only fifteen months before, he had become the youngest partner in the 142-year history of Winthrop, Hawkins & Company, Wall Street's oldest and most prestigious investment-banking firm. He inhaled deeply from the Macanudo cigar, leaned back in his wing chair, and blew thick smoke gently toward the high ceiling of the Racquet Club, the staid New York City gentlemen's establishment.

Typically, he didn't smoke a cigar, but tonight it tasted good.

Falcon's head was spinning. The annual partners' dinner-his first, since last year had been his first as a partner-was four hours old. He had enjoyed several Glenlivet cocktails prior to the meal and a bottle of cabernet with his filet mignon. Now he noticed the white-gloved waiters beginning to uncork magnum bottles of Dom Perignon.

It would take several minutes for the waiters to serve all seventy-six partners, and Andrew needed to maintain his stonecalm composure. In a very short time the annual bonuses would be distributed, and the anticipation was gut-wrenching. This wasn't the corporate "ten thousand dollars and a pat on the back" bonus. This was real money, investment-banking money. Falcon reached for the snifter of cognac standing before him on the linen tablecloth.

The tables were arranged so that they formed a large U shape in the dimly lit, mahogany-panelled room. The chairman and most senior partner, E. Granville Winthrop IV, great-greatgrandson of the firm's founder-and a direct descendant of the Massachusetts Bay Colony's first governor-sat at the head of the arrangement. The other partners were seated on either side of Winthrop according to their tenure with the firm. The most tenured of the partners sat immediately to Granville's left and right and so on away from him as the individual's length of service to the firm decreased.

Falcon sat at one end of the U, directly across the room from Roland Thompson. Thompson was a thin, Waspish-looking man of thirty-eight who, even though his eyesight was 20120, wore tortoiseshell glasses.

Thompson had made partner two years ago. Almost overnight he had guided Winthrop, Hawkins to the top of the convertible-debt league tables. This year, however, it was rumored among the partners that Thompson had made some very bad trades and lost the firm a great deal of money. But only Granville, the four other members of the Management Committee, and Thompson knew for certain. Losses in specific groups of Winthrop, Hawkins were not disclosed to the partners. Of course, that did not stop them from speculating among one another. Andrew noted that Thompson had become drunk early in the evening. He also noted that no one seemed eager to speak with Thompson during cocktails. Now the man was so intoxicated his head was almost resting on the table.

Thompson's group was not the only area of the firm rumored to be bleeding. Revenues for the Fixed Income and Equity Underwriting divisions, two of the firm's flagship units, were supposed to be below the healthy numbers of previous years. Origination, underwriting, and trading figures in those groups were all off. Off as a result of what the President of the United States termed economic stability-slow but steady growth. And what the investment bankers called anemia. They didn't like slow and steady. They needed volatility to generate their huge profits. And there hadn't been much of that lately. Andrew puffed on the cigar. Perhaps he should not expect so much from this dinner.

Falcon glanced toward the head of the table. Granville was smiling in his restrained, guarded way at something one of the other senior partners was saying. It was the same way Granville smiled at any piece of information, be it good, bad, or indifferent. Andrew scrutinized Winthrop's face, but there was no way to determine anything about the bonuses from that visage. Granville was the consummate "I" banker, as investment bankers were called in Street parlance. His face never revealed his feelings. Because you could lose a deal that way.

Andrew relaxed into the comfortable chair, grinning. Granville acted differently away from Wall Street. As a rule, he didn't become overly friendly with others at the firm, but he had made an exception in Falcon's case. In the past four years, Andrew had become an increasingly frequent weekend guest at Winthrop's sprawling, oceanfront East Hampton estate-weekends Falcon wasn't putting together another multimillion-dollar deal. There Andrew had learned of Granville's personal side. He had learned of Granville's love of Thoroughbred racehorses-of which he kept four at the grounds' stables; of his prized antique gun collection; and of his huge yacht. They would sail all day with a crew of ten, then return at sunset to a delicious dinner prepared and served by the estate's staff. After dinner Andrew and Granville would retire to the mansion's venerable study to break open a bottle of hundred-year-old Scotch and discuss business and politics.