Page 146 of 12 Years
‘Yes, I will.’
‘If you want, I can have Paulina visit. You try her for a few days.’
‘Tania, no!’
‘Really, I don’t mind. Don’t give her anything for those days.’
Okay, was she my old girlfriend or my new pimp? I couldn’t tell.
‘Give me some time. Right now, I’m happy with you. You’re amazing. Okay?’
‘Fine. Thank you,’ Tania said and smiled, though with a somewhat disappointed look.
‘Now, do you want to have the next drink here or back at my place?’ I said.
‘Why the hell are they being so secretive? We signed the NDA, and they still haven’t told us who the buyer is,’ I said to Mudit as we walked towards the office conference room.
Max and Alan had already arrived, along with two of the buyer’s representatives. On entering the conference room, I noted that one of them was Caucasian and the other of Indian origin. Both were dressed in crisp formal suits and looked like they were in their forties.
‘Hello, everyone,’ Max said as we all sat down. ‘I’m happy to finally introduce our client today. This is Philip Stevens and Neeraj Gupta from Blackwater. Philip, Neeraj, meet Saket and Mudit, co-founders of SecurityNet. Philip handles all of Blackwater’s Asian and European business while Neeraj heads their India operations.’
‘Blackwater?’ I blurted out. Mudit and I looked at each other, shocked.
‘Yes, is that surprising?’ Philip said, smiling and extending his hand towards us.
‘Yeah,’ I said, shaking his hand. ‘We weren’t expecting a private equity firm.’
‘Why?’ Neeraj said.
‘We thought we were talking about a full buyout. Not a stake sale.’
‘We do want to fully buy out SecurityNet, on behalf of one of our portfolio companies. If this deal goes through, we’ll merge SecurityNet with the company in question.’
‘Which portfolio company?’ I said.
Neeraj leaned forward. ‘This cannot leave the room. It’s a listed company. Any merger discussions are sensitive news. This must be kept private,’ he said.
‘We signed a ten-page non-disclosure agreement. What else can we do? Write down another promise in blood?’ I said.
‘No,’ Max stepped in quickly. ‘Our client trusts you. They’re just re-emphasizing the need for discretion.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Whatever we discuss, it stays in this room.’
‘It’s CloudX.’
‘The cloud-server company?’ I said.
‘Yes. It’s Bangalore-based,’ Philip said. ‘A billion-dollar-plus revenue, and a twenty-billion-valuation. Started—’
‘I know CloudX,’ I interrupted him. ‘It started about fifteen years ago. Recently received fresh investments from AWS, which is Amazon Web Services, right?’
‘Correct,’ Neeraj said. ‘And Blackwater was one of the earliest investors in CloudX. It’s been one of our most successful investments. Over 100x return.’
‘Congratulations,’ I said.
‘Thank you. So, AWS wants CloudX to have a cybersecurity business. If CloudX does it on its own, it’ll take time. We feel it’s better to acquire an existing cybersecurity company that’s doing great work,’ Neeraj said.
‘Like SecurityNet,’ Philip added.
