The Solitary Alpha

8 - Monday #2*

Gideon arrived at Mr. Sanada's door at 8:25am. Knocking, he asked her to enter.

"Mr. Sanada, Good Morning." Gideon bowed politely as was the custom and approached his desk.

"Ms. Okada, please have a seat." Gideon made herself comfortable. This was work so she wasn't nervous about anything. "So what did you want to discuss?"

"The Satori deal, before I say anything, will you tell me your thoughts on it?" 

Sanada looked at her as she held his gaze. He filled her in on the possibility of turning part of it into high end apartments with the lower half used as office space.

"I understand. I'm sorry to inform you Mr. Sanada, but the Satori building is not structurally sound. May I use your projector for a moment?" Sanada nodded as he focused on what she as going to say.

"The Satori building had several issues during construction. They went through 3 site developers as the firm didn't want to follow the safety suggestions because doing so was costly. You see Mr. Sanada, the Satori high rise is 36 floors, the structural footings are not deep enough to safely support a building of that size. With t-" Just then another Senior Member entered the office. Sanada turned to him, as Gideon paused.

"Anno-san, please have a seat. You will find this interesting. Please continue." 

Gideon bowed to the other gentleman.  "With the current footings, this building shouldn't have been built past the 8th floor. Three years ago, there was a 6.8 magnitude earthquake. It caused substantial cracks to not only the basement level but the first 3 floors and 2 of the middle floors." Gideon brought up side-by-side images. "The current developers poured an extra 3 inches of cement on the basement floor and set in rebar to strengthen it and patched over the cracks on the other floors. Gentleman, this building is not safe, one good sized earthquake and you will have major issues not only with safety but structural integrity." Gideon handed the two men safety reports.

"Those are the recommendations and safety reports from the three engineering/building groups that refused the contract along with their reasons. The last four pages are the building documents that shows the proposed plans with correct depths for the footings and the actual plan that they signed off on." Gideon stopped and waited for a response from the two men. She felt she had conveyed her concerns and that they were valid and backed up with proven facts.

Sanada looked at Mr. Anno, neither of them said anything. Mr. Anno stood up and walked towards Gideon. He held out his hand and shook hers. "Congratulations Ms. Okada, you just saved this firm over $30 million dollars. Sanada, you've got a keeper." With that he left and Sanada stood. 

"Time for our meeting Ms. Okada. I will let you take the lead." Gideon bowed and followed Sanada to the conference room where the Americans were already seated and enjoying the refreshments.

As the two entered the men all stood as Mr. Sanada walked towards a seat without acknowledging any of them.

"Please gentleman, have a seat." Gideon motioned for them to sit. She knew what Sanada was doing. He wanted to see if she would sink or swim and was going to sit there and not say anything. She'd seen it before so she wasn't worried. She had no problem taking control of the meeting, in fact she preferred it. From Sanada's office to the conference room he handed Gideon a briefing of the deal, giving her only 5 minutes to digest everything.

"Are you gentleman comfortable? Do you need anything before we start?" Gideon spoke in English first then translated to Japanese for Sanada.

"No, thank you so much for the refreshments. We really appreciate it, we don't get that too often over here." Gideon smiled and introduced herself and asked each of the men their names.