Taking Care of Business Pt. 03

Copyright 2022, PostScriptor

Emilia's excitement at new experiences was a real joy for me. And when we flew from Lima to Santiago in my private jet, it was another first for her, and she was just overflowing.

Alas, that had to end.

"Emilia, we have to talk," I said, "and we have to talk now, before we arrive in Chile.

"We are trying to get a major concession for The Trust to mine lithium. But we are competing with most of the major mining companies to get what is a limited number of operations that Chile will allow.

"I am working on the assumption that in Chile, the government, the people we will be dealing with, will bug our hotel rooms and even when we are not in meetings, they will have us surveiled. So we will not talk about anything of substance until I tell you it is safe for us to do so.

"Another thing, and one of the reasons I reached out to you (yes, I know, beyond the fact that you are beautiful,) is that your English is perfect, and with your light colored hair and skin tone, we will pass you off as a Norte Americano. While we will not deny your perfect Spanish, unless we are directly asked, we will not volunteer the information. So remember not to say anything in Spanish that would clue them in."

I handed her a bluetooth earphone that appeared to be one just like a million others, along with a phone that was already mated to the ear piece.

"You know what this is, right? Only it is more.

"There will be times when their negotiating team will back off to discuss our proposals. If they believe that we can't speak or understand Spanish, they will be more candid about their thoughts and opinions.

"There is a button on your phone," I showed her the button, "that will turn the earpiece into a powerful listening device. That way, as their team is strategizing, you can be listening to what they say, and when we are alone, you can let me know what they've said. Okay?"

"Okay, Kevin," she replied.

"Oh, and by the way, get used to calling me 'Mr. Walker'. As a lover, you would call me Kevin; as my personal assistant, you wouldn't be so casual. Got it?"

"Yes, Mr. Walker," she replied with a grin.

I smiled back at her.

For the rest of the flight, I was giving her a tutorial on the facts about lithium mining in Chile, which is NOT done the same way, for example, as in Australia. And how I thought we could stand out as different from the other competitor vying for the same area.

You have to understand that while the wealthy parts of the world think they are saving the planet by moving to electrical systems powered by batteries, they are ignoring the environmental damage that is merely being moved upstream in the process. Lithium is an example.

In Chile, there is a salt-water aquifer that contains lithium. They don't really 'mine' the lithium, they pump up this mixture into shallow ponds, called 'solers' and allow the water to evaporate in the sun. Then they scrape off the white powder on the top — the lithium — and it goes from there off for processing.

The concern is, that while the locals couldn't use the salt water for agriculture or for human consumption, they are worried (rightly so) that as the salt water is pumped out, fresh water from nearby sources may start seeping in, reducing the already limited amount of fresh water.

What I was going to offer the Chilean government was, The Trust would contract with the same Israeli company that I was already in touch with, to build and operate a mega-sized desalination plant on the coast, and work with the government to distribute the water into those areas where they feared the loss of fresh water.

In exchange, we would get the 200,000-acre (a very small part of the total Lithium mining area) concession that Jack and I had spotted in our earlier travels, and not pay the government fees for a minimum of 10 years. I was going to aim for 15 years.

Now, nothing is simple in this world, and this deal certainly wouldn't be.

First, in addition to the desalinization plant, we would have to also build a power system to provide that large amounts of electricity needed to make reverse osmosis work.

It would be a hybrid system: PV panels to power the system during the daylight hours, a large battery storage system, and a petro fueled system for nights, after the batteries were depleted.

Then we would have to set up a supply chain to bring in either oil, or natural gas for the electrical generators.

On the surface, the government would soon decide that I was a fool, because to provide those facilities would almost eliminate any profit from the lithium.

So, the question was: how was I going to turn this into yet another fabulously profitable enterprise.

The answer to that was, as in real estate: location, location, location.

When my Uncle Jack and I had been wandering around the Chilean desert, lithium hadn't been on our minds. We had found evidence of copper and silver as well as some of the other 'hangers on' metals — nickel and other trace metals usually found with copper or silver.

Our agreement would cover the concession for 'mineral' rights, but it would not be limited to lithium. Everyone, of course, expected us to be solely mining lithium. We would have two operations going on eventually; one a lithium extraction operation and the other a standard metals mining operation that would be almost pure gravy!

Obviously Chile would discover the additional mining eventually, but at least for the first period — ten or fifteen years — we would be operating under the first contract, which would be greatly to our advantage. After that, they would have a tough time shutting us down, since by then the entire region would be used to getting their water supply from The Trust (we would own the desalinization plant and the generating plant outright) and suddenly cutting off the water would be an ecological disaster for the region. One of the considerations of the period of the agreement was that reverse osmosis membranes need to be replaced roughly every five years. If they boot The Trust out, or nationalize the mine, then they would have to do the expensive reboot of the plant.

A side benefit of the desalinization plant would be to use the brine that is separated from the fresh water to pump back into the existing saltwater aquifer to address the concept of fresh water seeping into the saltwater area as the saltwater is pumped out.

As I mentioned, we would probably use a combination of photovoltaic cells in addition to a petro fuel-based power plant. The cost of the plant and equipment is too great, as is the need for fresh water, to not run the plant 24/7/365.

But, I'll let the engineers figure out all of the details.

Since we had almost 3 hours on our flight, Emilia and I were able to talk about our strategy and I showed her the binder that contained our proposal.

After we had gone over the business plan, we started talking about more personal things — family, what it was like growing up, our college experiences, yada, yada.

I did explain that we were not going to be sharing a room on this trip.

She started to pout!

It was not as if I wouldn't enjoy sharing a room and my bed, I told her. But we were not going to give the Chilean negotiators any leverage that we could avoid. Plus I assumed that our hotel rooms in Santiago would be bugged!

She agreed with me that she didn't want anyone listening in while me made love — or at least fooled around!

"If you think that there might be listening devices, why don't you just hire someone to come in and remove them?" Emilia asked.

"A good question," I answered. "Because sometimes if they believe that they are putting one over you by listening in, you can use it, either to mislead them, or to say things to them that you wouldn't say in person. But if they overhear it, what can they say? 'Oh, I didn't like what you said in private in your room?'"

I grinned at her.

"This is a new game for me," she sighed. "But I will learn. If you will teach me," she said rather pointedly.

~~~ *** ~~~

We had arranged a limo to pick us up at the airport and deliver us to our hotel in the downtown business district. I had again cautioned Emilia against speaking Spanish or talking business in the limo. So we managed on my English, dealing with a driver who I was fairly sure was pretending not to understand English as well as he really did.

At least he got us there quickly and took the most direct route.

After we had checked in and our bags had arrived with the bellhop, I took a device out of my computer backpack (I had not surrendered that to the bellhop; I always carried my computer and the paraphernalia on my own,) and went around the room looking for signs of bugs. Emilia walked with me, as we conversed about nothing, and her eyes were bugging out when she realized that my paranoia was being proven right. Oh well! We would be careful, plus I had a trick or two up my sleeves.

That night, I took Emilia out to dinner at Giratorios, a restaurant at the top of one of the many hi-rise office buildings in the downtown area, that was within walking distance of our hotel. This particular restaurant has an unusual feature: the floor rotated, so that you get a 360-degree view of the city. The food was good, if not great, but good as well. A couple of drinks and some wine helped us appreciate the view.

Back at the hotel we went to our separate rooms for the night and went to sleep. At least I did. We had agreed to meet downstairs for breakfast at 7:30 this next morning.

We entered the room where we would meet with the reps from the Ministry of Mining precisely a 9:00 AM. The Ministry of Finance had also sent a representative, as well as the Ministry of Public Works, who I had asked to have present as well. Carlos Ortiz, from Mining and Carolina Moreno, from Finance, were surprised to find their colleague, Alfredo Saez from Public works there, but they seemed to be willing to grin and bear it.

Emilia got a chance to use her 'bluetooth' earphone (read listening device) as the three of them were in a conclave of sorts when we arrived.

Emilia told me that they were quizzing Alfredo, in a less than cordial manner, what the hell he was doing there. Didn't he know that these negotiations were confidential and why the hell should someone whose department was in charge of building bridges and roads be in attendance? He answer, in truth, that he had no more idea than they, but had been tasked by his Minister! Oh well!

We did the usual meet and greet, with coffee and various other drinks offered. We declined, because we had just come from breakfast, and we had our own already open water bottles. That relieved us of the worry that anything might be in a drink.

Emilia got up and distributed the proposal that we had prepared to the three Chileans.

Then I started my PowerPoint proposal.

It was almost funny how shocked the government reps were! After all, they were basically bureaucrats, people who made their living following rules. Thinking outside of the box is almost a career ending heresy. And, honestly, was I trying to get them to think out of the box.

But, as I pointed out, in lieu of paying the government cash, I was going to spend as much (or even more, to be honest) as our concession would have paid the government in fees for mining the lithium, but I would be solving the external criticism for ALL of the concessions by addressing the issue of pumping out the brine and just letting it evaporate.

I would also be solving the internal political problems of potentially reducing the availability of fresh water for the communities living adjacent to the areas where mining was taking place. We would be at least replacing (and perhaps producing a surplus) of fresh water.

It also meant that the government could squeeze the other applicants for cash, since they government wouldn't need to get the remediation done by each concessionaire, because we would have already provided it for ALL of the mining operations.

They finally understood why the rep from the Public Works department was there: what we were not providing was the pipes, roads and other infrastructure to distribute the water beyond our plant and concession, as well as the improved roads needed to access the mine . That would force the government to 'buy into' the project — to have some skin in the game.

Of course, I hadn't expected a decision that day, but I think that the three reps from the ministries were at least mostly on-board with the concept. Now they had to take them back to the respective bosses.

I expected that a second round of meetings to ask additional questions and for clarification would come, and this time in addition to the reps, there would be technical specialists joining the meeting. I had greatly complicated their process, but they could all see that it might be worthwhile in the end.

After the meeting broke up Emilia and I left the building and we were picked up by a Trust car that I had arranged that took us into the foothills of the Andes, east of Santiago, to a spa that took advantage of a hot springs.

Just in case, I had again warned Emilia not to speak of the meeting yet. But once we reached the spa, something no one knew ahead of time that we were going to do, I rented a room for the night and we could speak openly.

As we sat naked in the hot spa adjacent to our room, we finally covered the meetings. Emilia told me what the three reps had been saying in Spanish when they had little conferences at the other side of the room.

"Señora Moreno at one point suggested testing your honestly by soliciting a bribe to see if you would go along, and that would disqualify your bid. Señor Ortiz told her that The Trust had a good reputation around the world for its mining operations, and that his Ministry didn't want to disqualify your proposal. He said that it was different, but it was creative and would solve several problems that they were having with all of the mining proposals.

"But then Señor Saez said that he wasn't sure how his Ministry could fund the infrastructure requirements for distributing the fresh water and the roads that they would need to build."

I smiled. I had anticipated the objection and had a supplemental proposal ready when they raised it!

I was glad to have had my cute little spy feeding me the inside scoop.

We spent the next week, Emilia and I, seeing the sights in and around Santiago. We spent a couple of nights at a vineyard up the main highway to the north of the city, and then want further to the main port of Valparaiso and spent time at the beach community of Playa Cancon, and wandering around the city taking photos of the street art.

I still refused to take her virginity, but we kept each other satisfied using other means!

It was two weeks after the first meeting before we had another meeting set up, but this time I was not at the meeting alone with Emilia. We had several people from the Israeli company that builds the reverse osmosis water plants, who met with the experts from the Ministry of Public Works, and I was off in another corner with their boss, Alfredo, and Carolina from the Ministry of Finance.

They explained that they had examined the costs of the additional infrastructure to build a distribution system for the fresh water, as well as for a line for injecting the brine back into the salt-water aquifer that contained the lithium, not to mention the new roads, plus improvements to the existing roads, would be more than the budgets of their departments could afford.

That was when I laid out and alternative.

"Señor y Señora, I suspected that what you say might be the case, based on our own estimates of the costs involved. But, if I may, I came prepared offer you a potential solution."

I pulled out a second briefing.

"If you set up as a condition of receiving a mining concession, the purchase of a certain amount of construction bonds by the companies before they can begin mining operations, I believe that this can be paid for, without dipping into your budgets.

"For the companies, these bonds will be on the balance sheet as assets, not expenses, and they will even receive a small amount of interest on the bonds. The repayment of the bonds will come from the fees paid by the mining companies themselves. These are large international corporations that can easily purchase the bonds and a 15 or even 30 year repayment period will have little effect on their financials."

Both Alfredo and Carolina were generally impressed by my reasoning and appreciated that I had understood their problems even before they brought them up.

At the end of the day, when the meetings were over, we were told to expect a decision in two weeks, plus or minus a couple of days.

We did get a positive response in exactly two weeks, but by that time, Emilia and I were back in the States; Emilia with her mother and brother, and I was at home.

~~~***~~~

By home, I was actually speaking of what had been Uncle Jack's mansion. It wasn't small at 10,500 square feet, but it was not by comparison to many homes of the superrich, large, or even on a par. It was located on 50 acres, close to the official U.S. headquarters of The Trust.

I knew that I should eventually have to remake the place in my own image, as a young, single man about town, but I was actually quite comfortable with the house, as Uncle Jack had furnished it. I think that Mrs. Gray had helped him on the décor, and he had never been one to skimp on things, feeling that in the long term quality was more economic than buying things on the cheap, only to have to replace them frequently.

So I found myself sitting there in the great room with my parents.

"Well, son," my father said with a mirth in his voice, "how do you feel about being a billionaire?"

"I suppose I could ask you the same thing!" I replied, then we both laughed.

Mom and Dad looked at each other and smiled.

"While you've been gone, I closed that sale of my practice to my junior partners. Your Mom and I have put in an offer one the 25 acres property next yours, where we are planning on building our own home."

Mom just smiled at both of us.

"Honestly, though, Kevin, what has changed since you've inherited your Uncle's estate?"

I laughed.

"I have never worked harder in my LIFE! I always thought that if I were suddenly super wealthy, I would be able to kick back and relax. Instead, I've been on the road constantly, meeting with the managers at each of our businesses, trying to solve problems and to keep the business on an even footing.

"And while I know that I'm now wealthier than I was, I hardly feel like a billionaire! I guess that most people don't understand the difference between earning a billion dollars in a year, as opposed to owning a billion dollars in assets.

"I suspect that I may be, on a day-to-day basis worth $50 million or so in cash, or close to cash assets, if I need it, but most of the assets are tied up in the mines and other businesses. It would take time to turn most of those assets into cash.

"But I'm content. I think that most people who know of me, figure that I'm like Jack: worth a few millions, but not a super rich sort. The more knowledgeable people who are aware of the degree of control that I have over The Trust's assets estimate that I'm worth perhaps between $100 and $200 million, which is VERY rich, no doubt.

"But like Uncle Jack, I'm keeping a low profile. Anyway, was it Ted Turner who once said that after you were worth $100 million, you had everything and all you could do was buy more or bigger toys!"

"Do you have any plans for expanding the Trust's businesses, or entering into new areas?" my Dad asked, rather shrewdly guessing that I might have had some new ideas.

" Yes I do, and since you and Mom are the other main shareholders in The Trust, I wanted to tell you about them before I went too far.