Page 251 - James Caan - The Real Deal

24 · ANew Beginning

be allowed to sell. If I sold to Advent, I could sell many more of
my shares and start investing the money elsewhere.
Believe it or not, I had never thought about these things. I had
got so caught up in the razzmatazz of being courted by the City
and thinking about my personal situation after the flotation that I
hadn’t considered these practicalities. The private equity deal was
looking more and more attractive. After they had taken their stake,
my share would be diluted to 42 per cent, which would mean I
would still be the largest shareholder in the company I had
founded. That felt comfortable, so I discussed it with the other
shareholders and we decided to take their offer. I just had one
request: the deal had to be in cash.
‘You must be joking!’
‘Unless you can tell me why I should leave the cash in the
business, then that’s the way I want to structure the deal.’
We agreed a valuation that was higher than the level the shares
would have been issued at to account for the surge in price we
anticipated in the days after flotation. I agreed to put 30 per cent
of the cash payment back into the business so that it would be
available for growth, marketing, acquisitions or whatever else the
board decided to do with it. I didn’t think this was strictly
necessary as Alexander Mann already had a healthy bank balance,
but even without the 30 per cent the Advent deal made me very
wealthy. The question now was, What was I going to do with the
money?

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