Page 350 - James Caan - The Real Deal

The Real Deal

started veering off at strange angles: how much money have you
got in the bank, do you have any loans, what do you need our
money for? They had all missed the point. Peter didn’t need the
money, he needed some introductions. So I made him an offer, and
he was so confident of his projections that I offered to return a per
cent of equity for each year he hit his targets. The only catch was
that I wanted 40 per cent to start with, falling back to 36 per cent
if he delivered the growth. I could see Theo sitting there thinking:
Clever. Duncan was looking at me thinking: I’m in with James.He
matched my offer and we did a deal. The cash already in the
ChocBox coffers meant we could have actually paid ourselves a
dividend straight away and got our investment back, so there was
actually no risk.
Afterwards, Peter and Theo were quite convinced the deal
would fall through because we had asked for so much more equity
than Peter Moule had wanted to give away. ‘He’ll think about it,
he’ll call you in the morning and tell you he’s changed his mind. I
promise you,’ Theo said.
I went to have a quick word with Peter Moule before he left the
studio. ‘Are you happy with the deal, Peter?’
‘Yes, James.’
‘You’ve been in business long enough to know how you work.
When you agree to a deal, are you the kind of guy who follows it
through?’
‘When I’ve made a decision I stick to it.’
In the car park afterwards the others still weren’t convinced, but
Duncan and I compared notes and we drew up a draft Heads of
Terms agreement, the piece of paper that outlines how a deal will
work. I called my lawyer at Hamilton Bradshaw and got him to
write it up and e-mail it to someone on the production team who
then printed it out. Thirty minutes later I showed the Heads of
Terms to Peter Moule. The other Dragons were stunned that I
could get things moving so quickly.

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