The Mysterious Mr. Black

5

Chapter 5

It's so hard to breathe or even concentrate on what's happening because I almost touched Mr. Black's you-know-what. Yeah sure he's attractive as fuck but I'm not gay!

If I strain my neck from staring out my window then let it be. I don't think I even have a face left after what happened.

After an agonizing trip, we finally arrived in a very expensive looking restaurant. The valet opened the door of the limousine. I followed Mr.  Black as he entered the premises. I don't usually go with him during meetings except if I had to do some boring trivial stuff like taking notes or becoming a proxy for him when the meeting gets boring.

Mr. Black walked graciously along the corridor while all the staffs are distancing themselves to the side like the parting of the red sea. Amazing how his demeanor can scare people even though they are not his employees. Or is it? Maybe this was indeed one of his business. All I know is that Mr. Black is a filthy rich bastard who owns a lot of business establishments.

He declared a name to the receptionist, which I didn't catch, and we were escorted to a table where a man in his forties is waiting.

"Magnus Black." he regarded when we finally reached his table.

"Mr. Sheppard. It's nice to finally meet you." Magnus replied as he took the hand of the other man to shake it.

So here's what happened. I don't wanna bore you with the details cause I am already bored with the long talk. Mr. Black wanted to merge one of his company, Accelerate, to Mr. Sheppard's Amplify. The proposal is that Accelerate would absorb Amplify and will be in charge of the production, marketing and distribution of the product and Mr. Sheppard will receive a 30% cut of the total net income of Accelerate in the region. On the other hand Mr. Sheppard wants to have a consolidation, a dissolution of both companies in order to create a new one with a share 40% of the gross income.

Of course Mr. Black wasn't pleased with the demand because first, Accelerate is a global brand so it can't possibly be dissolved to sacrifice for a possible consolidation. Second, the only purpose of the merger is that Mr. Black wants to have a bigger market share in Oakridge since Mr. Sheppard literally rules all the shoe stores in the region. If you can't beat them, join them. I don't know but that's what I got from the long talk. The things I learn in the industry even though I didn't have a business degree.

"So you're telling me, the merger only applies to your stores in all Oakridge and I only get a 30% of the  net income?" Mr. Sheppard repeated.

"We checked the numbers. It's good. You don't have to work anymore. You can have a perpetual vacation and let us do all the work." Mr Black countered.

"It's like you bought my company but not really. If sales plummets, I am also affected. And I can't do anything about it since I can't interfere with the management! This is acquisition in disguise!"

"Have you ever seen one of our business failing? I don't think so." Mr. Black is starting to sound annoyed.

"Yeah. But what if this is just a ploy to lose one of your competition? You deliberately fail the business and you can easily start a new one."

"If that's the case then we'll fail together and you should know that I don't accept failure."

"Nope. I still don't trust you. If you really are a global company, why is it that you are so interested to be our partner company?"

Do I need to write this? I stopped writing when things got personal for the last minute.

"We can beat you if want you know. We can lower the price of our products at a break-even level until you lose all your customers. Walmart can do it to small business enterprises. So do we."