The Two Sisters of Borneo by Ian Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page A

through her head. She didn’t like the result, and that was even if they could salvage part of the thirty million.
    Ava lifted her cup towards May. “Cheers,” she said.
    May shot her a look that implied she thought Ava was being sarcastic. Then Ava smiled, and May smiled back, but without any enthusiasm.
    “I’m listening,” Ava said.
    May’s eyes darkened. “As I said earlier, Tambi and Mamat were in charge of sales and marketing. This Dutch customer — who distributes the products all over Europe — has been buying furniture from the family for years and has always paid his bills in full and usually on time. When they first started doing business, letters of credit were always in place, but over the years a trust developed. The company started giving the customer payment terms and stopped demanding the LCs.”
    “The brothers were involved in the financing?”
    “Not directly. Ah-Pei would have had to approve the arrangement. I can only imagine that the brothers talked her into it, and besides, the Dutch company had a good track record. But Tambi and Mamat are the ones who had the relationship with the buyer. They’d meet him in Holland or at the factory two or three times a year to put together purchase orders. But — and this a big but — this past October, after we’d done our deal with Ah-Pei and Chi-Tze but before the brothers were officially out of the business, the two of them met with the Dutch buyer and negotiated a huge purchase order. The Dutch customer bought nearly all of the existing inventory and then ordered multiple containers of new products.”
    “And the women didn’t find that odd?”
    “I think they were too excited about getting rid of their brothers, and besides, as I said, they knew the Dutch company. Or at least they thought they did.”
    “So Mamat and Tambi had the authority to commit the company to a deal that large?”
    “They were still partners and officers in the company, but Ah-Pei’s signature was required as well. The problem is that she didn’t read the fine print until two weeks after the brothers were officially gone.”
    “Fine print . . . Just how bad was the deal?”
    “The terms were ridiculous. Net payment wasn’t due until forty-five days after the product actually arrived in the Netherlands. With thirty days thrown in for shipping, that meant it would be at least seventy-five days before any cash came back their way.”
    “And we actually shipped that much product that quickly?”
    “They cleaned out the inventory. In a few weeks they had packed and shipped all of it.”
    “The women must have realized that their cash flow was going to be badly squeezed.”
    “Yes, they knew it, so Chi-Tze called the Netherlands and explained that they needed payment more quickly. She went as far as to offer the Dutch a two percent discount if they could pay within ten days.”
    “What did they say?”
    “They said they’d get back to her. They didn’t. The sisters called again. No one at the firm would talk to them. A month later the sisters received a registered letter from a Dutch accounting firm telling them the importer had gone under and that they were listed as an unsecured creditor.”
    “Unsecured?”
    “Yes, and that’s not the worst of it,” May said, gazing at her martini glass. With a sigh she pushed it away from her. “I shouldn’t have ordered this. It doesn’t help.”
    “How bad does this get?” Ava said.
    “Well, after I heard from the women, I had my lawyer contact the accountants through a law firm he uses in the U.K. After a lot of back and forth between the U.K. and the Netherlands, the London lawyers informed mine that, under Dutch law, secured creditors are the only ones with real rights and with enough power to bypass the bankruptcy filing and seize the assets for themselves. And that’s exactly what’s happened. A secured creditor — a finance firm, evidently — has taken control of every liquid asset of the Dutch