Grenville paused to arrange his papers. Outside near Tower Hill, a police siren was wailing in the distance in pursuit of armed bank robbers.
“At any rate, we were able to obtain a copy of the will which I’ll come to in a moment. In addition to the will, a second document also came to light in recent days – the large loss register which records the main losses the company has suffered in recent years….and here, I have to say that there were some losses that even we, the directors, knew nothing about. Your father played a very close hand and none of us had access to the register which was kept by him personally, locked in his office filing cabinet and worked on only by him. Although we knew about some of these losses, they weren’t recorded in the system. None of us in this room knew anything about the magnitude of them.”
This, of course was a lie : both Grenville and Black knew everything there was to know about the claims which had plagued Jim Ashby up until the moment of his death.
Confronted with this revelation, Rob Ashby had to subdue the anger he felt at hearing his father blamed for everything when he was not there to defend himself. To begin with, he wanted to find out what had gone on.
“Could we deal firstly with the will – it's a document concerning my own family after all. And it seems rather ironic if all of you already know what’s in it and I don’t. Am I mentioned in it ? My father never discussed it with me or what he was proposing to do with his shares. My mother left me some money so I’m not exactly destitute.”
At this stage, Grenville handed him the original will while reading from a copy of it.
“Our apologies – if circumstances were otherwise, I’d be pleased to congratulate you on being the major beneficiary. However, I’ll leave you to go through the will yourself but I would draw your attention to the trust referred to in paragraph 15, the offshore structure in the following section and your father’s majority shareholding which passes to you within the trust. At any rate, your father’s shareholding goes to you and as I’ve said, he was the largest shareholder. That is the main effect of the will.”
“So I inherit my father’s shareholding ? Well, if the company is insolvent or near insolvent, it won’t be worth a lot….”
Nigel Black quickly leapt into the discussion.
“Our main problem at the moment is that only yesterday we became aware of the enormous claims which had been made on the company. Now….your father was handling these himself. That was his style as managing director. You’re an underwriter and you know that in our type of business, there is always a danger where reported claims are not entered in the accounts. Yesterday, we discovered the extent of them – there aren’t many, only around six – but each one of them is big enough to wipe out all of our capital reserves and together, they would blow a company twice our size out of the water.”
Roger Grenville had left his chair and gone over to the window.
“An insurer’s reputation is everything – when a client presents us with a valid claim, we pay up, cash on the nail. In the present scenario….for various reasons we haven’t identified, your father didn’t do that – he purposefully held out on agreeing these six claims. If we did that for only one per cent of the claims we receive, we’d have no business. And from what I can see – there is no reason why all of the six claims shouldn’t be accepted by us – if we had the money – which we don’t.”
“But to agree that we’re liable for them would put the company into immediate liquidation. We would be cutting our own throats. What would be the point of that ? I’m sure my father would have gone through them with the utmost care if Plantation’s future was at stake,” said Ashby.
A non-executive director, Joaquin Batistin, a Spaniard tried to add his voice to the debate.
“We understand and sympathise with you – yes, it’s a very bad time – but….when I heard that your father had hidden from us these very large claims which we are being pressured to pay in full – I thought he must have gone mad. Yes, he began the company but we have our reputations in the market to protect and if it means that these claims may have finished off Plantation, then we must know that as soon as possible….”
“But all of you know that my father wasn’t one to hide problems. If anything, he used to tackle them head on,” said Ashby.
“Perhaps,” resumed Grenville. “But we’ve looked into the list of losses as far as we can with the brokers, the loss adjusters, the claimants, their lawyers, our lawyers and everyone who is pursuing Plantation – and there appears to be no doubt that in these six instances, your father had overstepped the mark.”
Ashby hit back. “I’m sorry – I just cannot believe that would have happened. You of all people, Roger – you knew him almost as well as I did – he would never have done that. I know what my father was like and what he would have done. It wasn’t in his nature to conceal large losses which were eventually going to land on us. Why would he do that ? It just doesn’t make sense.”
“We do understand how you feel, Robert,” said Grenville, “but the facts speak differently. Anyway, let’s leave it there for the moment and we’ll talk further about it once we know a bit more in the next hour. Let’s take a break – I think we need it.”
“One moment – I would still like to know – if I’m the major beneficiary, how much of the company do I own ? That might not matter if Plantation is insolvent yet if it isn't, what have I inherited ?”
“The will says that your father’s full shareholding comprises around eighty per cent of the shares. The remaining twenty per cent are held by past and present employees and ourselves.”
“But that would mean that…if the company was operating normally…that I, like my father before me, would control Plantation. Is that correct ?”