Real Cheating and Punishment Pt. 03

"Fine, get me the name and bank info of one of them and get Cheryl's husband to put the story out. I'll do the rest."

"How much do I stand to lose doing this?"

"Nothing, you'll make money."

"How would that work if the stock becomes worthless?"

"As it starts to drop, they will panic and start buying their own stock back to keep the value up. But sooner or later they won't be able to keep it up. That's when the price falls and you pick up stock to become the majority shareholder. Once you get that done, they will be a functioning company with no assets behind them, having purchased their own stocks, probably on margin. When it's time to pay the piper for them, you bail them out in a hostile take over, obtaining even more stock at below market rate. Once you own everything you can get, you have the leverage to not only bankrupt the company, but you can disassemble golden parachutes and retirement packages they made for their primaries."

"That would leave them penny less in a company that can't support itself. Their customer base will shrink making the problem even worse. Your one mean thinking man Tim."

"That's just where we get started. Once your shell company has control, you can cancel company credit cards, destroy expense accounts, pretty much anything you want."

Tim had a ruthless plan to deal with everyone in the company, and I was fully on board. I was going to be in a position to inflict pain on all of them, maybe not as much as they did to me, but hurt them all the same. Katie would be the one being hurt the most due to our prenuptial contract, but that didn't mean I couldn't or shouldn't inflict as much pain as I could.

So I used an old shell company, transferred funds into the account, and gave Tim all the information including a stock trading account. Letting him do this gave me a type of calm that I didn't think I would be experiencing. Knowing that he was going to be watching closely and jumping in every opportunity made me feel good. Now to sit hack and wait to put our plan in motion.

The next thing to do was turn over the findings of our investigation to Cheryl's husband and convince him to release them publicly. I figured that telling him we were going to cause that company a lot of discomfort would help with that task. He was pleased we found evidence to back up everything he knew, plus more. His next move was to start divorce proceedings which I gladly offered our services for. It just made sense to be in the middle of that just in case there were any revelations that would benefit our cause. And of course, he agreed to the press release, and I offered up our PR department to help him with that. Things were going according to plans, and I couldn't wait to serve this dish of revenge and punishment upon them all.

Tim told me that now all I needed to do was sit back wait and watch as he unleashed his plan, but of course I didn't want to be a bystander, I wanted an active roll in all of this. So he promised me that when it was time to make the next move, he would inform me and I could participate in his plan.

The next two days were mostly uneventful with me calling Katie as if I was in Dallas, speaking briefly and not giving any hints away that I knew about her activities. Tim was mostly in what became known as his lair scheming and plotting, and carefully unleashing his plan.

Then I got a call from Tim and asked to come down to his department. When I got there her showed me posts on stock sites about the problems at Katie's company and the speculation of what was going to happen to their stock price. Then he showed me where he had his computer set up to monitor their stock price and how many shares were being sold.

He showed me where the gossip on these sites was causing a sell off of stock, and where his system was buying it all up at a discount to restore the original price. He was up to having 12% of the company stock already, and he was buying it at less than what we had figured per share. At this rate, we would possess more than 50% inside of a week. I was worried the big bosses over there would see what was happening, but Tim assured me that as long as their stock price remained relatively the same, nobody would go looking to hard. And as time went on, he turned out to be right. So, we kept buying the sell offs, and waited to see where the turning point would be. Sooner or later, stockholders would get curious and start digging, and if we had controlling interest in the company...we would be just fine.

I started checking his computer s few times per day and everything was going as planned. By the end of the week we had 48% and the selloff slowed down. Tim recommended we dump a large amount of stock on Friday to cause a panic sell so we could pick up our currently owned stock and an additional 3%. This seemed risky to me, but Tim had been correct at every turn, so I gave the go ahead. Within three hours of our dump, the panic selling was in full swing, and we obtained more than we needed. Part one of his plan was successful, we owned the company. Now for stage two, which was never explained to me, but I trusted Tim.

"I can't believe how fast you were able to make that happen. How did you know it would play out this way?"

"It just made sense. Any investor hearing that a company was involved in what could be considered prostitution would pull his money as quickly as he could. It wasn't much of a guess and because we kept the price up, it was inviting for them to just cut and run."

"OK, now what's are next move?"

"That's totally up to you, Boss."

"Why? What do you mean?"

"What we do next depends on how badly you want them to suffer. Right now, we could demand the resignation of all the managers and above including your wife. Or we could be patient and plan out a real disaster of an end for them."

"You know I want to hear more about that."

"Then the next step is for you to do some surveillance and undercover snooping."

"Just tell me what I need to do."

"Tonight, when you call Katie, find out what she knows. By now, they surely know they were the victim of a hostile take over by a company they can't identify. Find out what they're doing and planning and let me know. We will use their own actions and fears against them all."

"That shouldn't be to difficult. Katie holds a bunch of stock options that haven't fully matured. If she knows what happened, she'll be worried and tell me all about it."

"Good, get me that Intel and we'll plan our next step." Make sure to find out what others at the agency are doing to try and protect themselves."

"How do you know they won't just sell their stock and walk away?"

"I have the brokerage account set up to dump large volumes of stock if someone tries to make a quick exit. They will end up selling worthless stock, plus they have to wait until the info is published or they'd be breaking SEC laws. They can't trade on inside information without going to Prison."

"Wow, that kind of puts them in a tough spot."

"Yes, it does. Just find out anything you can tonight. Meanwhile, I'm going to introduce their new owners to them and set up some changes like canceling all company cards so that new ones can be supplied under the new company name, closing all expense accounts in lieu of setting up new ones, etc. Realistically to just take away any avenue they may have to cost us money and protect themselves."

"Ok Tim, I'll dig up everything I can."

That evening when I called Katie, she was up in arms about the day's happenings.

"You'll never believe what happened today."

"Please tell me about it."

"Someone or some company from the Caymans bought up more than 50% of our stock and now they own the agency. We don't even know who or what they are planning."

"The owners didn't hold the majority of stock?"

"No, I asked about that. It appears they needed a cash infusion last year, so they put the stock out to raise the money. The plan was to buy it back over time, and because we're a small agency it was thought there was little risk."

"And you've had no communication with the new owners?"

"Just an email on the company server stating they will be introducing themselves and changing accounts and credit cards."

"Closing or changing? They are two separate things you know."

"They said canceling and replacing them."

"Do your principles have any type of plan to insulate themselves?"

"Not really. Their afraid if they try to dump their shares, this new company could release more stock than we could afford to buy up, tanking our price and making it worth pennies on the dollar. They'd take one hell of a financial hit, and it would get them nowhere. Right now, the stock price is holding steady and their hoping it stays that way."

"Well, who are these people?"

"We don't know. Because their incorporated in the Caymans, we can't figure out who they are."

"Yeah, some island nations have real tough privacy laws. In some it's illegal to ask who owns an account."

"That's why I'm asking you. Is there anything we can do to figure out who they are without breaking any laws?"

"Not that I know of and be careful with the stock."

"Why?"

"If you do anything to sell it off before this info is in the public, you could be charged with insider trading."

"I've got stock options that haven't matured. I was planning on that for my retirement. They could clean me out."

"There is not really much you can do, as you really don't own the stock yet."

"Crap, this really sucks. Is there anything we can do?"

"Not until they are ready to let you know who they are, rather than just a corporate identity. And then they will probably let you know what they're intentions are."

"How long should we wait?"

"On the stock, it will be reported before the end of the night. As for the agency and its future, only time will tell."

"Do you mean they could ruin us?"

"If that's what they wanted, they wouldn't have spent a bunch of money buying up your stock. Now you're joined at the hip, so to speak. Anything they do also hurts their bottom line."

"Damn this suck's not knowing."

"Just relax. They're probably not going to leave you hanging in limbo. If they bought you out, they want something, and you'll know soon enough what that is."

"Thanks dear. How is your business trip going?"

"I'm making progress, maybe a few more days, maybe just one or two. I'll keep you posted."

"Ok, we'll talk tomorrow then."

"Call and leave me a message if anything changes, won't you?"

"Absolutely I will dear."

I called Tim at home and filled him in on what she told me. He simply remarked that we were going to have some fun and we would talk in the morning. I was left for the night to simply try to figure out what Tim was planning. He was really enjoying this, and I basically gave him Carte Blanche to unleash any type of hell on them that he could. He was always a good friend, and I think he was bent on having some retribution delivered on Katie and the rest for what they did to me. But I would have to wait to find out what he had brewing in that brain of his.