The Deal Read Online Free Page A

on what he had not written about. There was no comment on his marriage and, unbelievably, no reference to his two sons.
    She chose not to reply. She’d made up her mind.
    On Thursday morning, at the offices of Agnew Capital, situated in Queen Street, south of Mansion House tube station, Oliver met with Andrew Agnew and his other colleagues.
    Andrew had founded his business in the early 1990s. Agnew Capital specialised in raising finance for entrepreneurial businesses. He’d been joined by Jody Boyle in 2002 and she was both finance director and responsible for regulatory matters. Oliver had known Andrew for a number of years before joining the firm in 2004. There were now eleven staff overall.
    “As you know from my briefing paper,” said Oliver, “City Fiction has been introduced to us by Nick Billings, their solicitor.”
    Oliver then described the formation of the company by Alistair Wavering and how he was joined by his sister Amanda two years later. Alistair had begun his career in regional newspapers and came to London when Tony Blair became Prime Minister. He’d worked for several specialist financial publications until he spotted a gap in the market: he’d realised that there were a number of people in the City who wanted to tell their stories. Some were coming to the end of their careers and were keen to write their autobiographies, others thought they could explain aspects of City finance, and a surprising number thought they had a novel in them.
    Alistair had realised that he must be based in the City and so he’d rented offices in the Royal Exchange. He housed his key staff here but also ran a production and sales team from cheaper premises in Camden Town.
    He was lucky to the extent that he’d begun trading in the boom years of the Blair/Brown era. Even though the recession was beginning to show, he’d had no difficulty in finding titles and people willing to pay for their publication. He’d quickly extended into fiction publishing and begun to build his reputation as an innovative operator. He’d made one acquisition which added twenty-seven titles to his list and brought in three talented young people. They were ahead in their understanding of the power of eBooks and the impact of the Kindle.
    “The company,” continued Oliver, “needs an injection of new capital to finance its growth. Jody has their financial projections. My advice is that they raise perhaps two million pounds now and then, in a year or two, join one of the smaller stock markets to develop their appeal to shareholders.”
    “Thanks, Oliver,” interrupted Andrew. “This is a good report. Jody, your thoughts please.”
    Jody smiled across the table.
    “Andrew,” she said. “I think this has potential. But, Oliver, please just summarise for me and for Andrew again, in no more than three minutes, why we should accept it.”
    Oliver smiled back at the finance director.
    “City Fiction,” said Oliver, “has now published over ninety books. They have two award-winning authors and they’re ahead in their understanding of electronic publishing. They were under-capitalised from the beginning. The initial half million pounds that was raised was insufficient to finance their rapid expansion. They had an eighty thousand pound government guaranteed bank loan which they have nearly repaid. They’ve issued some more shares under the Enterprise Investment Scheme, which raised an additional one hundred thousand pounds, and they have thirty-six shareholders.”
    Abbi Highfield, the marketing manager, nodded before speaking.
    “It really does help the story when the shares attract EIS relief,” she said. “The twenty percent upfront tax relief and the fact that dividends and gains will be tax free are both attractive.” She paused and then continued. “Andrew, I do like this story. Our investors will be able to relate to the company. They can go online and order the books if they wish.”
    Oliver looked gratefully at Abbi. She