Page 94 - James Caan - The Real Deal

The Real Deal

‘Not really’.
‘Have you been in business before?’
‘No.’
‘Do you own your own property that you can offer as security?’
‘No.’
‘Then I’m afraid we can’t help you, Mr Caan.’
I then got the idea that I should try a branch of a bank in
Mayfair or Park Lane, somewhere where £30k wasn’t very much
in comparison to their other deals. There was no logic to that, but
as I was sitting in reception in the Mayfair branch of Lloyds, I
noticed a leaflet promoting a new credit card. ‘Apply for an
American Express Gold Card today.’ If it came to it, I thought, I
could get a credit card, so I put it in my pocket and headed for
another pointless meeting with another unhelpful bank manager.
On the Tube back to Reid Trevena’s Farringdon offices I started
reading the leaflet. To apply for a gold card, you had to open an
account, but if you had a gold card Lloyds would give you a
£10,000 overdraft facility. It sounded too good to be true, so I
rang up Amex to check the details. They told me that as long as I
had an income of £20k a year I would get their gold card. I earned
over £20k, so that wasn’t a problem. And I checked with Lloyds
that they would give me an overdraft. The key thing about the
overdraft was that it was unsecured – I didn’t need an asset to offer
as security. So I opened a bank account and applied for the card.
When I got my first statement is said the magic words: Overdraft
facility – £10,000.
This was great, but I was still £20k short. However, it turned
out that NatWest had teamed up with Access to offer the same
deal, and Barclays was doing the same with Barclaycard. By the
time the House of Aisha needed my contribution, I had the
overdrafts in place.
The fact that I was so comfortable going into debt for Aisha was
telling me something about how strong my feelings for her were.

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