'No,' he said bitterly, 'I don't want to swim. You almost killed me that time. Since you don't have any arguments other than swimming, I would rather be silent. But I will advise all my friends on Earth and, by the way, Terence Bemish, sitting next to you, never, under no circumstances, do any business on Weia since nothing will come out of it besides debasement and shame. Believe me, Mr. Kissur — I could still patch everything together. But I am grateful to you that I lost this money; I recalled again that I have honor and self-respect.'
He turned and walked away.
Kissur looked at Bemish.
'Well,' Kissur asked, 'is he correct?'
'Yes,' Bemish said.
'Will you leave?'
'No,' Bemish shook his head 'I won't leave. You, however, should.'
'Where?'
'Anywhere.'
'Too late,' Kissur replied. 'I applied to the Federation Military Academy. They didn't accept me. I am not interested in any other place in your Galaxy, full of worms like a year-old fig.'
The next day, Bemish flew to the villa, where several members of his team and two LSV employees arrived. They had a simple task — to develop the contract's financial shell by the week's end.
The bankers worked day and night. In two days, a helicopter arrived, carrying a cheerful and slightly drunk Kissur and a much more sober Shavash. Kissur barged in the central hall where the bankers, having pulled an all- nighter, were finishing the IPO prospectus.
'You are not asleep, too!' Kissur heartened. 'Where did you ditch the girls? Let's drink!'
And he banged a jar of expensive Inissa wine on the table next to the printer, spitting out the financial projections. At this point, generally phlegmatic Welsey, scared to hell by Kissur, demonstrated a true greatness of the spirit.
'Kissur,' he said, 'I will drink with you only after you help me to calculate the cash flow in the company if the embargo on the Gera trade is enacted and the cargo flow decreases correspondingly.'
Kissur was astounded. He was not able to calculate cash flows.
'C-cads!' he muttered drunkenly.
Bemish found him a girl in the village and returned to the office, where Shavash was waiting for him. Shavash sat in the armchair next to a window looking thoughtfully at the neglected garden.
'What's your price,' Shavash asked.
'Eight fifty five for a share.'
'Thirty four million total,' Shavash noted. 'What are your investment obligations?'
'Sixty million. I am going to land the first ships in six months after the construction starts.'
'You don't have any experience building spaceports, do you?'
'I have experience involving professionals and setting up financial contracts, Mr. Shavash. This company should start bringing in cash flow in less than a year, otherwise it will go bankrupt.'
'How are you going to finance the deal?'
'The banks provide ten million out of ninety four. This is a ten percent loan, with the company property as collateral. Eighty four million are financed through the high interest bonds issued by my company ADO and placed by LSV on the intergalactic exchange market. Approximately four million belong to me and my friends.'
'So, you risk only four million of your money out of ninety four.'
'I risk the other people's money and my own head.' Shavash reclined in the armchair.
'As far as I know, it's a standard way for buying the companies with existing cash flow used to pay interest. While you are buying a hole that you need to fill with piles of money.'
'We will try to construct the contract's financial shell in such a way that we won't pay anything this year. We are planning to issue some zero-coupon bonds with a two year maturity time. It means,' Bemish explained, 'that the bonds will be sold at a discount to their face value and the difference between the selling bond price and the maturity price, equal to the face value, will make a profit.'
'Don't take me for Kissur, Terence,' Shavash pointed out. 'I know what zero-coupon bonds are.'
Bemish quacked in exasperation.
'We are also considering securities with the alternative coupon payments — they can be paid with money or with the new bonds.'
Shavash paused. Trumpet sounds suddenly entered the room through the window — the shepherd was herding the cows back to the village.
'That's a risky affair, Mr. Bemish. I am not sure if your bond price will get to 70 % of its face value on the market. What will remain then, from your so-called eight and a half dinars per share?'
Bemish swallowed. He knew that the official was all too correct.
'The securities will cost dinar for a dinar,' Bemish said. 'The IPO prospectus has a condition, that the bond interest will be re-evaluated a year after the issue so that the securities cost will be equal to their face value.'
Shavash paused.
'It's quite an unusual decision,' he said finally.
'This decision will allow me to lower the cost of financing the deal by three percent.'
'What if, to the contrary, your securities price falls?'
'The price will only rise,' Bemish said.
Terence Bemish was so sure of himself that he was not going to frighten the investors by a predetermined ceiling of the adjustable rate. As it came out afterwards, he had signed the death verdict to Assalah project.
Then, however, Shavash seemed to be positively impressed with Bemish's words.
'There are Weian banks,' he said, 'that would be glad to take part in this affair and buy your bonds on a big scale. However, the affair is quite risky and you need to sweeten it up a bit. I suppose that the large investors could have an opportunity to buy, besides the bonds, the stock warrants for three years — ten shares for a dinar. You could reserve 20 % of the shares for this purpose.'
Bemish raised his eyebrows slightly. Shavash's idea meant that the warrant's buyer will be able to acquire the Assalah stocks at their current price in three years. Bemish hoped that, in three years, the Assalah shares will cost hundred times more.
'So, who will buy the warrants?' Bemish asked.
'The Weian banks which will acquire the bonds.'
'Can you be more precise?'
'It will be I and my friends.'
In an hour, Welsey and Shavash descended to the central hall. Bemish stayed on the upper floor to take a shower and change his shirt — he had broken a sweat. When he walked down, Kissur was sitting in the hall and instructing two young Trevis' aides how to train a highwayman's horse, so that it could find the road in the dark and didn't neigh in an ambush. The bankers listened attentively. Their young and honest faces expressed a sincere interest. The bankers were used to express a sincere interest to any client. One could suppose that setting up ambushes among rocky gorges was their primary occupation.
'If the path is rocky, you should wrap the hoofs with felt,' Kissur said.
He turned around to the sound of steps.
'Why are you so glum, Terence,' he said in Weian, 'and why is it all so dirty?'
Kissur trailed his fingers in disgust down an expensive pink wood table — a banker dropped pizza on the table, hurriedly eating it.
'You don't have a woman — that's the problem,' Kissur noted. 'Idari says the same.'
The headman, having noiselessly approached on the side, bowed and quickly popped in.
'If the lord needs a maid, I have a good candidate — a small official's daughter, a seventeen-year-old maiden, gentle as jasmine petals. Her father was caught stealing and he is currently under an investigation. To collect the money to butter the judges up and secure his daughter's future, he could sell her for fifty thousand.'
Bemish glanced quickly towards his colleagues — the conversation was in Weian and they clearly didn't
