Chapter 217: Clara Weston
"Today I do," said Sean.
Marcus stared at him.
"Pull the filings," said Sean. "And call me when you have them."
He finished his coffee and went to his economics class.
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His professor was talking about market efficiency theory, the idea that prices reflected all available information at any given moment, and Sean sat in the third row and listened and thought about the gap between what that theory described and what markets actually did, which was price things based on what people believed about the available information rather than the information itself.
The distinction mattered enormously.
Business Insight had never told him things other people couldn’t theoretically know. It had told him how to read things other people were reading incorrectly. The pharmaceutical trial had been publicly announced months ago. The logistics partnership had been in industry publications for weeks. The Vertex situation was in a public filing from Friday evening.
The information was the same for everyone.
The read was different.
He took notes on the lecture and thought about Meridian Capital Group.
After class he found a bench outside and called Max.
"I need everything on Meridian Capital Group," he said when Max answered. "Corporate structure, acquisition history, the actual outcomes for the companies they’ve acquired, who runs it, how they finance these deals."
"Timeline," said Max.
"Whatever you can get by tonight."
"I’ll have something useful by afternoon," said Max. "Full picture by evening." A pause. "This is the next thing."
"Yes," said Sean.
"Give me a couple of hours," said Max.
Sean put his phone in his pocket and watched the campus move around him, students with bags and coffee and the ordinary business of a morning that had no awareness of a sixty-four million dollar balance or a hostile acquisition filing or a twenty-six year old CFO who was currently sitting in an office somewhere trying to figure out what her options actually were.
He pulled up the Vertex Data Systems contact page on his phone.
Found the investor relations email.
Typed a short message.
My name is Sean Miller. I’m a shareholder in Vertex Data Systems. I’d like to speak with whoever handles investor relations about the Meridian acquisition disclosure. My direct number is below. I’m available today.
He pressed send.
His phone buzzed eight minutes later.
Not an email back. A call from a number he didn’t recognize.
He answered. "Sean Miller."
"This is Clara Weston." Her voice was direct and professional and moving at the speed of someone who had been in three meetings already this morning and was fitting this call in between two more. "I’m the CFO at Vertex. I handle investor relations. You said you’re a shareholder."
"I am," said Sean.
"How much do you hold," she said.
"Currently under two percent," he said. "That’s going to change."
A brief pause. "How old are you."
"Eighteen," said Sean.
A longer pause. "Okay," she said, with the specific quality of someone putting a question aside temporarily rather than dismissing it. "What do you want to talk about."
"I want to talk about what Meridian actually does with the companies it acquires," said Sean. "And whether the founders have seen the data on the nine companies from the last six years that no longer exist in any meaningful form."
Silence.
Then, less professionally and more directly: "Where did you get that number."
"I’ve been watching the sector," said Sean.
"Most people watching the sector don’t have that specific number," she said.
"Most people watching the sector aren’t looking at the right things," said Sean.
Another pause. Shorter this time. "How long do you have right now."
"I don’t have another class until two," said Sean.
"I have seventeen minutes before my next meeting," said Clara. "Talk."
He talked.
She listened without interrupting, which he noted because most people interrupted. When he finished she asked two questions, both precise, both going straight to the part of what he’d said that had the most structural weight.
He answered both.
"How do you know this," she said.
"I’ll explain the how when we’ve established that the what is worth working on together," said Sean. "Do you think it is."
A pause.
"Yes," she said. "I think it is."
"Then let’s talk properly," said Sean. "Not seventeen minutes. Properly."
"I can do tomorrow afternoon," she said. "Our offices. Two o’clock."
"I’ll be there," said Sean.
She hung up without a goodbye, which he didn’t take personally because the energy of the call had been entirely forward-facing the entire time, no social performance in it, just two people who were both operating on the same frequency and had immediately recognized that about each other.
He sat on the bench for a moment after the call ended.
Then he texted Max.
Add Vertex Data Systems charter documents to the research. I need the acquisition blocking threshold and the full shareholder voting structure.
On it, Max replied.
His phone buzzed again. Marcus.
Ownership filings pulled. You need to see this. Meridian already owns 8.4% of Vertex. They’ve been building a position for six months.
Sean looked at that text for a long moment.
Six months. Meridian had been accumulating quietly for six months while announcing publicly that they had no position. That was the kind of move that required either very careful legal structuring or the assumption that nobody would look.
He texted back. What’s the blocking threshold.
Charter requires 67% shareholder vote to approve an acquisition, Marcus replied. Meridian’s offer goes to a vote if the board accepts it. If they can get the board to recommend acceptance, they need 67% of shareholders to vote yes.
Or 33% plus one vote no to block it, Sean typed.
Correct, said Marcus. Current known distribution puts the founders and founding team at roughly 31%. You’d need to coordinate about 2% of additional shareholders to vote no.
Sean sat with the math.
Two percent.
He owned under two percent currently. If he acquired more, and if he could get even one or two other existing shareholders aligned, the block was possible.
He looked at his balance on his phone.
Sixty-four million dollars.
Two percent of Vertex, at current trading volume with the stock already up eleven percent this morning, was going to cost more than it would have cost yesterday. But it was still a number that existed well within what he had available.
He stood up from the bench.
He had a one o’clock class, then a conversation to prepare for, then Max’s research to read tonight.
And tomorrow afternoon he was going to walk into Vertex Data Systems’ offices and sit across from a CFO who had ended the call without a goodbye and had used seventeen minutes better than most people used an hour.
He was looking forward to it.