Page 189 of 12 Years
‘Should we head back?’ I said.
It took six weeks for the due-diligence team to give their final sign-off. They had checked every file, document, receipt, invoice and data inside SecurityNet.
‘Here, three and a half billion dollars, ready to go,’ Neeraj said as he slid the final binding offer document towards me.
I flipped through the fifty-page document, pausing briefly at the page detailing my payout. At this point, I owned twenty per cent of SecurityNet, implying my stake was valued at seven hundred million dollars, or nearly six thousand crore rupees.
Mudit gave me a brief nod. ‘We did it,’ he mouthed silently.
I could almost hear ‘The Money Chant’, from the movieThe Wolf of Wall Street,play somewhere in the background. I closed the offer document and set it aside.
‘The legal teams on both sides have checked this, right?’ I said.
‘Thoroughly,’ Max said.
I turned to Shailesh, the head of legal for SecurityNet.
‘Yes, we have,’ he said. ‘It’s good to go. Once all the parties sign, the transaction will close within thirty days.’
‘In that case,’ I said, ‘all we need now is a pen. Anyone?’
Payal took out a pen from her laptop bag and handed it to me.
‘Thank you, Payal,’ I said.
‘Before you sign, we have one request though,’ Neeraj said.
‘What?’ I said.
‘We’ll complete the signing here. However, we want to host a party next month, to celebrate the deal. We’d like you, Mudit and other senior members from SecurityNet to attend it,’ Neeraj said.
‘Oh, okay, sure. We can survive one party with you guys,’ I said, smiling. ‘When and where?’
‘Next month, after the transaction is fully complete. We’ll do it in Mumbai.’
‘In Mumbai?’ I said, blinking at Neeraj.
‘Well, yes. This is a big transaction for us. The event will help Blackwater and CloudX get great publicity. We also want to do some strategic media and PR meets.’
‘I haven’t been to Mumbai in years,’ I said.
‘We should go, bro,’ Mudit said. ‘It all began there. Let’s go back and see how far we’ve come.’
I looked at everyone in the room. My eyes stopped at Payal.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll throw a good party,’ she said with a smile.
‘Okay,’ Mudit said, raising his hand. ‘I just had an idea.’
‘What is it?’ Neeraj said.
‘We’ll do the event in Mumbai, but not at a boring hotel. I have the perfect venue for it—one connected to SecurityNet’s founders,’ Mudit said.
I turned to Mudit, raising an eyebrow.
‘I used to run a comedy club in Mumbai. I sold it to the club’s CEO a few years back, but it’s still around,’ Mudit said. ‘Let’s do it there.’
‘A deal-closing party at a comedy club?’ Neeraj said.
