The Great Game

May 2, 2020

I stare at the numbers on the elevator’s display panel, watching them tick upwards, mentally preparing myself for the meeting to come. I want to fume at the AMA, cuss it out some more, but there will be a time and place for that later. Right now, I need to save a billion-dollar deal.

The elevator doors slide open and I stride out, confident in my freshly bought suit. It’s not tailored like my tuxedo for the Getty Ball was, but the fit is good and my purple tie is a work of art.

Tiffany Najbreit, walking beside me and sporting a light pink blazer, walks up to the front desk.

“Welcome, Ms. Najbreit, Mr. Ashworth. The meeting today will be in Conference Room Pandora,” the secretary says. “Would you care for any refreshments? Coffee?”

“I could use an expresso,” Tiffany says. “Just a touch of sugar for me, please.”

“Make that two,” I say, and the secretary nods.

“I’ll bring it to the conference room momentarily.”

Conference Room Pandora turns out to be a large corner room with wide windows overlooking LA. Three polished black tables are set up to form an equilateral triangle that dominates the bulk of the room, and it looks like each party in the deal has gotten its own side.

On the table to my left sit the people representing STX Entertainment. There’s Bob Simonds, Chairman and CEO of the company, as well as Giselle Pritzker and Antony Vinciquerra, two big-shots in the media world who sit on the company’s Board of Directors. A partner from Skadden sits next to them, hunched in a quiet conversation with a managing director from Morgan Stanley. The set of them lock eyes with me briefly as I enter the room, and then they lazily get off their seats, approaching Tiffany and me with a sleaziness that drips out of their power suits and limp handshakes. They know they’re being wooed. They’ve got all the power here.

Last to approach us out of the bunch is Bob Simonds. This is Eric’s father. He keeps one hand stuck in his pocket as he offers his right for the handshake.

“So, you two are the crack team Warren’s assembled for the job? I was expecting this little bit to show up eventually,” Bob says, flashing Tiffany a smile with all too much teeth. Tiffany’s grip around his hand is knuckle-white; Bob pretends not to even notice. “But you, Mr. Ashworth… I’m interested in your presence here today.”

“I’m just here to make sure that things go smoothly,” I say, keeping my face neutral.

Bob chuckles, finding something about my words funny. He returns to his seat and resumes scrolling through something on his phone.

The Lionsgate people, sitting on the table to the right, approach us next. There’s Mike Rachesky, the Chairman of the Board, Edouard de Rothschild, CEO of the company, and then close behind them, Edouard’s wife, the one and only Hanna Maria Rothschild. She sits on the board of the company, and it doesn’t take a genius to see that she’s the main reason why Edoaurd de Rothschild né Marseille holds his current position. A Sullivan & Cromwell lawyer and a JP Morgan banker round out the rest of their crew.

Mike and Edouard are courteous and Tiffany and I exchange proper greetings with them, and then Hanna Maria gestures for the lawyer and banker to introduce themselves before her. They do, and I see the way Hanna Maria watches me with a pointed gaze as I do so. I try to keep a calm head, but the idea that she might be able to call me out as a fraud still surfaces.

She’s met “me” before, knows what mannerisms “I” should have, and now I’ve thrown in my lot with her enemies. What if she calls me out?

“Pleasure to see you again, Tiffany,” she says, her voice thin, with some edge to it.

I would swear that edge is jealousy, except for the fact that she’s married… but maybe it’s just the regular kind of jealousy—over Tiffany’s fame, Tiffany’s fortune, Tiffany’s immanent fuckability…

“Always a pleasure, Mrs. Rothschild,” Tiffany says, shaking her hand.

Then, the lady turns to me, and I see what she’s going to do only a fraction of a second before it happens. Two kisses, right cheek, left cheek, and then she plants one on my lips, her mouth lingering there for a second, the ghost of her tongue against mine. She tastes like Belgian chocolate. I back away, not quite fast enough, almost stumbling, feeling flustered, and she twirls around and returns to sit by her husband, putting a possessive hand over his.

It takes me a second longer than Tiffany for me to find my seat at the long table facing the window. Also seated at our table is Claire, Amanda, a Goldman Sachs MD, and Mica De Luca, the chairman of MGM Studio, but I hardly pay them any attention, flipping through the slide deck on my table instead, trying to find a graph or a chart or something concrete to focus on after that kiss. The secretary comes in then with our coffees, and I sip mine idly, knowing that the caffeine buzzing in my system is the last thing I need at the moment.

The meeting starts and I miss the first couple exchanges that carry across the room, but it heats up quickly, and the next thing I know, Amanda Najbreit is tearing apart Lionsgate.

“This isn’t just going to be a hiccup in your cashflow situation. You only need to take a look at all that long-term debt that’s maturing over the course of these next few months. Twenty years seemed like an eternity ago, back at the turn of the millennium, didn’t it? But that two-hundred million isn’t just going to materialise out of nowhere now, and with the way your latest films have burned money like Texas crude, that debt is smelling rather odious to me.”

“What are you accusing us of? Not being able to come up with the capital for the acquisition? Don’t be ridiculous,” Edouard says nonchalantly, his accent only containing a trace of that French accent. “We’ve been looking at our re-financing options for the debt, so that’s not even a factor.”

“Mr. J.P. Morgan, have you had much luck rolling over those Lionsgate bonds?” Amanda says, turning to face his companion.

“I’m not required to disclose that,” the banker says.

“You want to have confidence in the company that’s looking to acquire you,” Amanda says, turning to face the STX table. “Did that inspire confidence?”

Hanna Maria leans over and whispers something to her banker.

He pauses, staring straight ahead.

“JP Morgan is prepared to underwrite all of the aforementioned debt held by Lionsgate,” the banker says in an even tone.

“The Rothschilds are too big a client to lose, aren’t they?” Amanda smiles.

“Regardless, that is the liquidity problem addressed,” Edouard says, giving his wife a loving pat on the hand.

“Alright, alright, that’s enough about that. Let’s talk board seats, executive restructuring,” Bob Simonds says, leaning forwards in his chair. “Last time we met, Lionsgate wanted to expand our board by two, taking the chairman and adding one member. Now MGM, you folks, as I recall, wanted to replace five on the board, including our chairman. We went back and talked to our board. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of them were not keen on the idea of being replaced someday soon.”

“We can’t negotiate on that front. It’s a family tradition, that each subsidiary company to Najbreit Holdings have at least one-third of the board members be instated by us,” Amanda says simply.

“Then I’m afraid we won’t be able to reach a deal,” Bob says, shrugging.

The two members of the board with him, Giselle and Antony, nod emphatically. I just find it ironic that it’s my adopted sister who’s the one talking about family traditions.

“As I recall, we never got around to talking about compensation for those board seats. We would be willing to arrange for a gift—twenty sticks a head,” Claire says. “My team has looked at ways to do that. We have clean ways to get it to you each, tax free."

Ah, the good cop, bad cop routine. I see Giselle and Antony’s expression shift from smug to intrigued in a split second. Twenty million dollars, untaxed, is at least double what they thought they would be treated to today.

“Still no deal,” Bob says, shaking his head, but Antony holds up his hand.

“Tell me more about it,” he says, nodding at Claire. “This sounds interesting to me.”

“I think we’ll keep our cards close until we’re sure that the Rothschilds won’t steal our idea,” Claire says. “Unless you guys have a counter-offer now?”

“We’re not paying these board members to stay in their seats,” Edouard immediately scoffs. “You get to keep your jobs and that nice retainer.”

“Sorry, I’m an outsider here,” I say, and I feel the weight of all the eyes on me in the room at once. I was supposed to stay quiet this meeting. But the chance is too good to pass up on. “How much is the retainer?”

“Between two-fifty and five-hundred grand a year,” Bob says.

“Thanks,” I say, making a deliberate note of it on the margins of the slide deck in front of me.

“Tough to improve on that when money’s tight, huh,” Amanda says, without missing a beat.

“It is known that we have less working capital than you,” Edouard says, sounding a trifle annoyed. “But when we are talking about a billion dollar deal, what is ten, fifty million dollars?”

He pauses then, reaching for the heavy black pen sitting in front of him. It’s polished with a sleek silver rim, the word ‘LIONSGATE’ printed in neat serif letters across the side. He slowly hods up the nib to the light, turning the pen for all to see, and then he carefully taps out a single drop of ink into his coffee cup below.

“That money’s a drop in the bucket. Or the cup, if you will.”

The droplet of ink makes a small splash in there, the black dissolving into black.

“But if the blend, the synergy, the harmony between the companies isn’t right?”

He lifts his cup of coffee up and takes a quiet sip. He blanches, and spits the mixture back into his cup.

“That’s shit that ruins everything it touches.”

The room sits in stunned silence for a second, and then Bob laughs, clapping his hands together.

“Bravo, bravo, Edouard, that’s a great one, I tell you.”

“It’s a good point,” Giselle says. “The synergies between STX and Lionsgate would be considerable. Just the IP alone—think about the recent run of Marvel films, and then imagine if the rights to the Chyoa stories were held by one company—what a franchise that would be! And that’s before we even get to the actual production teams and distribution channels.”

“MGM doesn’t even distribute to LatAm,” Hanna Maria says thoughtfully.

“STX has a couple Spanish language projects coming to market over the next three years,” Arnold Williams says. “We have run the numbers while fund-raising for STX, and it’s clear that access to foreign markets will be a major bottleneck.”

It’s the first time the Morgan Stanley banker has spoken all meeting, and his posh British accent lends Hanna Maria’s words a weight that makes them seem all the more threatening.

“Can you, Mr. De Luca, commit to opening up full-scale operations in the region within the next five years?” Hanna Maria asks, capitalising on the moment.

Mica De Luca, CEO of MGM Studios, looks over to Mandy and Claire for the answer. He’s a sharp guy, but it’s clear to everyone in the room just how whipped he is. It would only take one word from a Najbreit for him to kill his firstborn off.

“Give us a second,” he says, and then he turns to Mandy and Claire, seeking their advice.

“We can’t do it,” I whisper under my breath to Tiffany.

“Why not?” she asks me.

“Because we’ll be stuck with a one-point-four billion dollar bill at the end of it,” I say to her.

“You mean this will win over the STX board,” Tiffany says.

I nod.

“Not to mention investing in a money sink in Latin America. We know the math doesn’t add up for us.”

She thinks for a second, and then taps on Claire’s shoulder, whispering something into her ear. Claire gives me a look, and then nods to Tiffany.

I don’t hear the whisper-fight that transpires between Mandy and Claire, but a minute later, Mica De Luca grabs the attention of the room.

“Sorry, a lot to discuss there,” he says. “We will not be expanding distribution into the Latin Americas region. We don’t think the market there is large enough to justify the expense. We would urge STX to run the numbers for themselves, and then to take a look at the ones we’ll provide after this meeting.”

“Now, that won’t do at all,” Bob says with a sigh. “But it has given us much to think about. We’ll go back and talk with the rest of the board. Let’s reconvene in a week, and perhaps you’ll have a decision for yourselves then.”

Hanna Maria, meanwhile, has been giving me a very curious look, and I give her a pleasant little smile of my own as the meeting draws to a conclusion.