DC: I am Bruce Wayne

Chapter 75: A Hunt of Owls and Bats

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"Never trust anything that can bleed for a week and not die."

- Chad, (In The Company Of Men)

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<[Court of Owls Gathering Hall]>

<(Omniscient POV)>

"I can't understand how we are not able to profit from them. Wayne Industries is supposed to be a rapidly declining corporation that we were going to devour to increase our own wealth. It was going to be something extremely easy and profitable for us, so can any of you gentlemen tell me why the hell have we not been able to take even a single one of their assets yet?" The man in the golden owl mask questioned in a severe tone as he looked around the table at his 'juniors'.

"We almost had the entire Wayne Corporation in our hands. According to the people we have on our payroll, the company is still massively bleeding money in most of its technological ventures. Even Wayne Biotech is losing money like water with job cuts being a regular incident. So, things were going exactly according to our plan. But instead of the conglomerate discreetly selling their assets to us, the members of the Court of Owl, they have been steadily selling their assets and loss-making companies to Bruce Wayne." One of the people with a white owl mask on said with a disgusted expression on his face.

"But that should be impossible. We own more than half of the board of directors in the company. We should be able to buy whatever they sell off at the dirt-cheap prices. How are they allowing that Wayne kid to do this? Is he offering them even more money than us?" A woman wearing a white owl mask suddenly asked."

"No, actually quite the opposite. According to our insiders, Bruce Wayne's butler who is managing his finances is using his biggest shareholder status in Wayne Enterprises and a small loophole in the accountancy system to get first dibs on every company the massive corporation sells which allows him to be the first to offer a price for it. Wayne Enterprise being a public company has to legally accept that deal as long as the price offered meets their valuation expectations or as long as someone else doesn't try to challenge the deal by betting a lot more than what they have offered.

But again, the family never seems to run out of money especially now that they have brought that bank. So, outbidding them for an acquisition is out of the question, and even if we do manage to do that somehow, it will ultimately be our loss in the end since we would have sent too much to make an actual profit. So, no matter what we do, Bruce Wayne and his newly established Wayne Solutions will always emerge as the final winner." The previous white owl-masked man explained.

"Maybe we should target Wayne Solutions directly by using some of the... classic methods of Corporate Espionage and Industrial Sabotage that we can employ. Also, we have our government dogs, don't we? I think all of us are giving the Wayne orphan and his estate more importance than we should." Another member sitting at the table said with what sounded like a calm yet bored voice.

"Mr. Seventh, believe me, or not, we are just as busy as you are, and as you can see we are definitely not some children to worry about a kid. We have already tried almost every trick in the book. We had our newest pawn, Penguin hire a few professionals to enter and steal whatever company secrets they could find at one of the company's bases but it had not only proved useless since they could not even pass through the outermost defense of the building but even the few people we had managed to sneak into the company as employees came up empty handed before they were caught and given to the cops. The company reportedly does not keep any of its confidential data in a publicly known base.

Also, the local city government authorities do not have any power over the company especially because of its rumored connections with the military. As for the national organizations that do have the appropriate power to act against the company for some reason won't. Apparently, they have got quite some goodwill from different senators."