'Hold on I wrote it down somewhere... Here we go.
Plumb, George Haversford. Born, 34; married Mary Ann Champun, 58; two kids, blah blah blah... out of grad school in co with a D.B.A.; Smothers and Crimp, 5960 through 63, left as a partner.. Controller, Hardfast Steel in Pittsburgh, 63 till 66; Controller and chief operating officer, Readilite Manufacturing, Reading, Pennsylvania , 66 through 68; a step up to CEO at an outfit called Baxter Consulting, stayed there till 73; 73 through 74 at Advent Management Specialists; went out on his own with the Plumb Group, 74 till 77; then back into the corporate world in 78 at a place called Vantage Health Planning, CEO till 85-'
'The guy hops around a lot.'
'Not really, Alex. Moving around every couple of years in order to up your ante is your basic corporate drone pattern. It's one of the main reasons I dropped out of it early. Hell on the family lots of booze-hound wives who smile a lot and kids who turn delinquency Into an art form.... Where was I? Vantage Health till 85; then It looks as if he began specializing in medical stuff. Arthur-McClennan Diagnostics for three years, NeoDyne Biologicals for another three, then MGS Healthcare Consultants--the Pittsburgh place you asked me to look up.'
'What'd you find out about it?'
'Small-to-medium hospital outfit specializing in acute-care facilities in small-to-medium cities in the northern states. Established in 82 by a group of doctors, went public in 89, OTC issue, poor stock performance, got reprivatized the next year-bought out by a syndicate and shut down.'
'Why would a syndicate buy it, then shut it down?'
'Could be any number of reasons. Maybe they discovered buying it was a mistake and tried to cut their losses fast. Or they wanted the company's resources, rather than the company itself'
'What kinds of resources?'
'Hardware, investments, the pension fund. The other group you asked about-BlO-DAT-was originally a subsidiary of MGS.
The data analysis arm. Before the buy-out it got sold to another o o concern-Northern Holdings, in Missoula, Montana-and was o o ~o maintained.'
'Is it a public company?'
'Private.'
'What about the other companies Plumb worked for? Are you familiar with any of them?'
'Not a one.'
Are any of them public?'
'One second and I'll tell you.... Got the old PC cooking. Let me make a scan list. You want to go all the way back to the accountants-Smothers and whatever?'
'If you've got the TIME'
'Got more time than I'm used to. Hold on just one second.'
I waited, listening to keyboard clicks.
All right,' he said, 'now let's scroll up the exchanges and run a search... here we go.' Beep. 'Nothing on the New York.'
Beep. 'No Amex listings on any of them, either. Let's see about the Nasdaq..
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
'No listings, Alex. Let me check the list of private holdings.'
Beep.
'Doesn't look like it, Alex.' A slight edge in his voice.
'Meaning none of them are in business?'
