Chapter 90.1

Chapter 90.1

Friday night.

André’s sped along the Long Island Expressway at top speed. He glanced at his wristwatch. It would be nearly midnight by the time he reached the Chelsea nightclub.

Leaning back, he pressed his throbbing temples. It was the worst possible ending to the worst week.

Earlier today, a board meeting was held to amend the company’s bylaws to include staggered board terms and differential voting rights as part of a defense management control. The proposal was narrowly rejected.

Had these provisions been included during the IPO, they could’ve prevented the hostile takeover attempt. But André recently learned that Lafayette-Lowell Group’s bylaws were suspiciously weak on management defenses.

He’d only just discovered that Grace, who had been battling an illness, entrusted Gordon Lowell and his son with IPO decisions, believing in James Lowell whom she regarded like a nephew.

Realizing the Lowells, whom Grace had taken in, had been scheming to devour the company while acting loyal filled him with murderous rage.

If there was any silver lining, it was that their scheme hit a snag when André, just a week into his role as vice chairman, convened a board meeting and inserted a poison pill clause into the articles of incorporation.

Had they included all the provisions at once back then, they might have built a stronger line of defense. But at the time, there simply wasn’t enough time to review the others. So he pushed the board members relentlessly, aiming at least to get the poison pill clause into the articles of incorporation.

Back then, it was still possible because the board hadn’t fully chosen sides. Now, even if he had tried to insert the poison pill clause, it would have been voted down.

The problem was that this outcome foreshadowed the shareholders’ meeting. The biggest loss was Collins defecting to Gordon Lowell after receiving a Picasso painting.

Despite André’s repeated meeting requests, they dodged him with excuses. That d#mn2d Lorraine Carbot’s noose around his neck tightened daily.

He felt defeat was closing in but he couldn’t give up until the noose tightened and he was strangled by the neck.

To gather more shares through the holding company, André hastily sold a Yorkville building on Third Avenue to the Hamilton Group.

It was a 12-story corner building, just a block from the new Q-line subway station, planned for demolition within five years to build a mixed-use apartment complex. Selling it cheaply to Hamilton made his teeth grind, but it was an inevitable decision.

The proxy battle raging under the surface was no less fierce.

After returning from a golf trip to the Bahamas with Gordon Lowell, Chris McCabe switched back to Lafayette’s side. He was eyeing the chairmanship of the private school board his three sons attended—a position he desperately needed to cover for their frequent misbehavior on campus. André helped him secure Lafayette-Lowell Group as the school’s internship partner.

Chris was a lecherous elitist to the core. Even if Gordon Lowell may have satisfied his lower body, Chris could never be his friend, which worked in André’s favor.

He prepared the agenda for the shareholders’ meeting in a format and order that was favorable to him, and held daily meetings with legal experts to discuss management rights defense strategies and legal procedures.

There were many cases where publicly listed companies, in the midst of defending against hostile takeovers, saw their debt balloon and corporate value plummet. They would ultimately enter bankruptcy proceedings and be sold off to other companies. With the stock price already falling a lot due to the poison clause, André had to deliver short-term results and develop long-term management plans.

This week, they finally chose a director to lead the department in charge for the Asia expansion. System digitization and email implementation were moving forward despite resistance from existing executives.

A meeting was scheduled for next week to determine which hotels and department stores to close or repurpose based on the second-quarter performance. That meant the reports had to be analysed over the weekend.

An investigation was launched into the suspicious flow of funds linked to Gordon Lowell. It was another card to play against him at the shareholders’ meeting.

But today, even André reached his limit. For the past few days, his routine had been to quietly slip into bed, fighting the urge to wake her, catch a few hours of shallow sleep, and head off to work.

There was still work piling up, but tonight, he just wanted to spend a little time with her. He longed to hold Miran, bury his face in the nape of her neck, and breathe in her scent. He needed that strange comfort he couldn’t describe.

But late in the afternoon, the company was thrown into chaos.

It was because a section of a logistics warehouse in Long Island collapsed, which had been damaged by the worst snowstorm in New York’s history last January.