Chapter: 10 – The New Man
The meeting with Jonas Faraday was fascinating. I had tipped my banker, Seth Fielder, to what was going on, and I wanted him to be included if it got to the point where we could seriously look at some type of ownership position. Seth was excited that this had come about so quickly, and was grateful that I had thought to include him in the early stages. He promised he would make himself available to me at a moment's notice. Then he dropped the bomb. He was also Jonas Faraday's banker. He said we would work out the conflict of interest issues when the time came.
I was ushered into the old man's office-den by his housekeeper. Jonas was lean and tall, and surprisingly erect for a man of his age. His eyes were bright, and he still had most of his silver hair, combed neatly back. He was a stately figure of a man, and I found myself hoping I would look this good at anywhere near his age.
When we entered the large room, another man stood and stepped toward me. Jonas immediately introduced him.
"Stanley, this is my son, Gabriel. Gabriel, meet Stanley Copely."
We shook hands, and I was directed to a large, leather wing chair at a conference table.
The housekeeper entered and served coffee and a selection of cookies. With the introductions and some small talk out of the way, Jonas decided to get to the reason for the meeting.
"Stanley, for the past three years, I have been selling off some development property I own in order to raise the cash to quietly buy back some of the F & C stock I surrendered nearly ten years ago. It was a bad decision on my part, and I regret it to this day. However, I have now recaptured a sizeable amount, and with my son's shares, we are almost in majority ownership. With a couple of votes from some of the minority shareholders, we would be in complete control of Faraday and Crosse once more.
"Should we accomplish that, it would allow me to set the company back on a course toward rebuilding its reputation, as well as its profitability. The business is losing money as you might have suspected, but not so much that it can't be salvaged with some astute moves. That's where Gabriel comes into the picture," he finished, nodding to his son.
"I've been in the venture capital business for some years now," the younger Faraday began. "By and large, my partners and I have been very successful at finding weak businesses and restoring them. In almost every case, the key ingredient has been to find the right people to run them.
"Dad has been trying to get me to step in at F & C, but that wasn't going to happen unless we could secure the majority vote on the board. We've been doing a bit of behind the scenes lobbying, and we are confident we have the required votes to take back control of the company. That's the easy part. What we need is someone who can lead the business back into the black and make it sustainable. That's the hard part," he grinned.
"I've done some poking around and asking some knowledgeable people about the situation and I wanted to bounce some ideas off you. I think you're close enough to the workings still to know what might work and what won't." He paused for a moment to sip his coffee before continuing.
"I don't think the future of F & C is in the manufacture of packaging machinery. It has slipped too far behind the pack of competitors -- many foreign -- to recover without a massive investment in manufacturing machinery, and even then, there's no guarantee we could be competitive. So we decided to look at it from a different angle."
Gabriel paused again, taking another sip of the coffee as he collected his thoughts. I was fascinated at where this conversation was going.
"I think what might work is a distributorship with assembly and service capability. In other words, we would approach a number of machinery manufacturers to act as their distribution and service arms throughout the U.S. In addition, we would set up a separate business to assemble components into finished machines for these companies. It would be to their benefit as well as ours. It would mitigate import duties, and give them 'American' content. Finally, we would also set up a separate service department that would do what you are doing today. Taking on all comers," he smiled.
I didn't say anything right away, trying to digest just what Gabriel had proposed. My thinking wasn't interrupted as they waited for my response.
"I like parts of it, for sure. I agree, it's probably too late to catch up on our ... your ... own. The question is, how divorced from the distributorship is the service division? Are we ... you ... going to have problems with the manufacturers when we service competitors' equipment?" I was having trouble not thinking of myself as part of this company, and I could see Gabriel and Jonas smiling at my awkwardness.
"Everything has to be above board, but then, I really don't see a big problem," Gabriel noted. "It's in their best interests to have the top service available. They aren't able to provide it, especially from a foreign country that can be thousands of miles from here. Their interest is in selling machines, and that's something that F & C still knows how to do. It's the other parts of the business that are weak; particularly the service end."
Jonas then added his voice for the first time. "That's where you come in, Stanley. I can't think of anyone who is better able to understand the service requirements than you. That includes training, both in-house, and at the customer level. What it will take is leadership. The kind of leadership you showed at Winston Candy on the Helmvac installation."
"I gather you've been talking to Byron Mulliner," I smiled.
"Yes indeed. He gave me chapter and verse about what you accomplished and just how quickly it was done. I saw the machine, and it was pretty damned impressive, considering you had never seen one before."
"Yeah ... well ... I had a bit of luck, along with some good people."
"Mr. Mulliner and his staff think otherwise. But nonetheless, you led by example and got them out of a big jam. That's the kind of leadership that fixing F & C is going to need." He sat back, looking quite satisfied with himself.
"Maybe you'd better spell out what you have in mind. Anything along the lines of investment by me is going to require the advice of my banker. I understand you know him, Jonas – Seth Fielder."
Both men chuckled. "He's my banker, all right, but he's also a friend. Very progressive young man is Seth. Something like you, I think. That's probably why he has such a high opinion of you, Stanley."
"Yeah. We work well together," I agreed. "So, tell me what you have in mind, please."
"The service business would be owned and operated by you, just as Copely Services is today. In fact, it might be wise to let it remain Copely Services and just continue to expand it the way you have," Gabriel suggested. "You would receive twenty percent of the outstanding F & C shares to complement your investment, and as payment for your company's good will. We stand to gain a lot with your name as president."
I nodded. It didn't sound too adventuresome yet.
