The Legacy Read Online Free PDF Page B

selling Tokifora. Nothing drastic but I would like to have reduced our holding by twenty percent by Monday evening.’ She nodded and left the office to issue instructions.
    Highworth was an autocrat. He was rude, arrogant and, whilst charming to those he considered his peers, he bullied those who worked for him. His behaviour was tolerated because he was so successful at making money and because he paid his staff very well indeed, well enough for them to put up with being abused, at least for a few years. He was happy to be challenged by people when discussing investment proposals, particularly by members of his research team, but, following dinner with an old army friend, he had recently taken to telling his staff to defer to what he called ‘the hierarchy of wisdom’. This slightly Delphic utterance had been taken by his staff to mean that as he was at the top of the hierarchy, he clearly had the most wisdom and they should do what he told them.
    He was using all of his hierarchical wisdom to work out when the best time to start buying Bubble.com shares would be. He was clear that their current price would drop rapidly once Fairweather had died. They were currently trading at 545 pence per share, having risen by over a pound in the last six weeks as the market’s confidence in Mymate grew. The confidence was in part fuelled by Fairthweather talking the application up at every opportunity, even guaranteeing that, once launched, it would only be a matter of a few years before it had a greater market share than Facebook. The first part of Highworth’s plan to make a killing was to ‘short sell’ two million of Bubble.com’s shares. Early next week he would enter into a contract agreeing to sell these shares in one month’s time at a price of 450 pence, over 95 pence below their current value. The price had been carefully selected. It was sufficiently low that those looking to invest in the company would be keen to buy but not so low that the regulatory authorities would start to take a real interest in the offer. Billions of shares were short sold every day and he knew there would be plenty of takers given the current price. With the charismatic Fairweather dead, Highworth was effectively betting that the market would fast lose confidence in Bubble.com’s ability to complete Mymate as planned and the share price would drop like a stone. He thought it would bottom out at about 250 to 300 pence per share within a week or so of Fairweather’s death, allowing him to buy his two million shares at a knock down price before then honouring his contract to sell them for 450 pence. He hoped to make several million pounds almost overnight doing this, but the second part of his plan was where the big money would be made. He intended to buy several million more of the shares once their price had dropped because he knew from his research that provided Colin Pearson stayed with the company, Mymate would be delivered on time and the share price would eventually soar to an all-time high. He smiled. Short selling was a gamble. Indeed, in 2010, concerned about the impact of short selling on market behaviour, the US Securities and Exchange Commission had introduced a number of restrictive rules to try and constrain speculator opportunism. But the UK authorities hadn’t, and provided you could influence events, the potential profits were so huge that the benefits far outweighed the risks.
    Highworth’s plan was beginning to fall into place. He picked up the phone and issued instructions to start short selling Bubble.com’s shares. His team didn’t demur. Whilst they might snigger about more wisdom cascading down the hierarchy, his track record was so remarkable that they simply did what they were told.

Chapter 9
    Lucy and Isobel sat on their beds, wrapped in towels in the twin room they’d rented at the Sagarmatha Hotel. Clean, relatively cheap and with lots of hot water - a rare