BarCalak
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Chapter 20: I’m Not a Businessman. I’m a Business, Man!
🕑 Added 2024-03-18 18:06:53 +0000 UTCChapter 20: I’m Not a Businessman. I’m a Business, Man!
Dunshire Equities, LA. January 2006
“I thought you had a heart full of gold! I was wrong! All you have is a mind full of asses!”
Anita Specter, my agent and personal attack shark, had turned her teeth against me.
What I assumed was meant to be a start of the year business meeting with my inner circle ended up being an ambush. No more late night meetings. I’m making sure from now on they’d be during the day and in public spaces.
I tried to defend myself, but even years of martial arts weren’t able to stop Anita’s relentless barrage on my body with a rolled-up magazine.
“Ow! Woman, stop!” I attempted to shield myself, but she was too quick for me.
“You’re a butthead! That’s all you are! A butthead, you hear me!?” she wailed while unleashing the fury of teen vogue upon me. I have to give it up to her though - even in her rage, she kept her mind on the job. She didn’t strike my face - our collective moneymaker - even once. What a pro. I’m glad I hired her.
I threw myself on the couch, used a cushion as a barrier against Anita, and beseeched Ben Wyatt, my financial manager. “Help! Man down!”
“Don’t even bother. You deserve every bit of that.” He abandoned me, not even bothering to call the police. He just reached for the bottle of whiskey sitting on the table strewn with empty pizza boxes, official-looking papers, and, much to my dawning horror, a pile of more entertainment magazines. “Just take your punishment. Then maybe we can try to talk some sense into you.” He poured himself a double, loosened his tie, and leaned back to watch the show.
“But what did I even do!?” I begged for a little context. I’d done plenty that deserved this beating. I just needed to know what specifically, so that I didn’t walk myself into another one that was completely unrelated.
“This!” Her weapon was chucked at me and unfurled. ‘Playboy Potter?’ stamped across the front cover of the magazine with three pictures of me with three different women.
Emma clinging to me at the red carpet, Keiko cozying up to me between takes, and most worryingly me dancing with Gemma on set.
“Ooohh…”
“oOohH” Anita mockingly imitated. Ben snorted through his nose at that.
“How’d they even get the one with Gemma?” I questioned.
“That’s your takeaway from this?” Anita scolded. “You’re more concerned with the mystery of how someone snuck a celebrity photo, rather than the fact that you put yourself in that position to begin with?”
“Well… yeah? Tokyo Drift notwithstanding, it was a closed set at Leavesden. I don’t understand how anyone got in.”
“Movie studios aren’t airports, security isn’t that tight.” She stole the magazine back, flipped to the article, and pushed back into my grip. “And what’s this about a pool party?”
I read through the paragraph speculating about an unsanctioned party I made happen. The grainy photos of Gemma on my back didn’t help. “This sounds a lot more salacious than it really was. We were just hanging out. I don’t see what the big deal is.” I tried to brush it off.
Mercifully, nothing concrete about me shacking up with either Gemma or Keiko. I’d be in serious trouble then. I guess the security team wasn’t totally useless.
“You think we don’t know about Arterton or the Asian? Cadbury goes everywhere you do, butthead.” My snoopy nanny shifted uncomfortably at Anita’s proclamation, revealing her indiscretion. “That cougar popped your cherry like a bad pimple.”
Ben spat out his drink.
“Cougar!? She’s only like four years older than me.” First physical abuse and now verbal; I clutched the cushion to my chest.
“You weren’t quite as careful as you think, Mr Rhys.” Cadbury inserted herself into the conversation. “I’ve had to intercede on your behalf multiple times since last summer, not always successfully, I should add. Ms Watson is aware of your clandestine affair with Ms Arterton.”
“How!? When!?” I panicked. My eyes shifted while I searched my memory, but I only saw images of jiggling flesh."... Where?
“She endeavored to hunt you down for her regularly scheduled tutoring session, as you were running late.” Cadbury clarified. “She caught you in flagranti in your dressing room. I, of course, extracted a promise of secrecy to which she acceded out of respect for your personal privacy.”
“Okay, fine. So maybe I had relations with Gemma.” Anita brandished her weapon again, “Yes, fine! Keiko too - you knew that already.” I pointed to my photo with Emma, “but I certainly didn’t do anything with her!”
“Not yet, you mean.” Anita was not letting me off the hook at all. She knew me too well. “Emma clearly has a thing for you.”
“Really?” I pursed my lips, averted my eyes, and scratched my cheek.
“Your ignorance rings false, Mr Rhys.” Cadbury helped.
“And then there’s that other girl you’ve been mooning at… the French one. Their breakfast comprises cigarettes, coffee, and coitus.” Anita continued with casual racism. “Are you telling me you’d say no to either of them?”
“I’m an orphan, so Oliver Twist taught me everything I know. When I’m offered a bowl of food, I don’t sit satisfied. I say ‘please may I have some more.‘“
Anita shoved her face into her hands, sighed, and flopped onto the couch beside me. She turned to me and looked so sad. I found my cheeks squished between her hands. “You used to be so sweet, so innocent…”
I gasped in shock, “you take that back! I never was!”
“No… no, I suppose you weren’t. But at least you pretended in public.” She hooked her arm around my neck and tucked me under her shoulder in a hug. “Understand something, Bas. You have to be more responsible for the way you behave - at least where people can see you.” She began explaining, without violence this time. “You, especially, have to be incredibly cautious; your audience is children, teens, and their mothers. Even a photo of you holding hands with a girl might as well be a full-blown sex tape to these people.”
“Uniqlo isn’t happy about this either.” Ben chose to pile on. “The Golden Trio is the face of their merchandise line of clothing and accessories. They’ve expressed their considerable disappointment and have urged me to ensure you understand the value your ‘idol’ status holds in their part of the world. Nothing is allowed to tarnish that; they don’t want you to be seen dating anyone at all, because you’d lose attainability to the average consumer.”
“That’s fucking crazy, man.” I couldn’t help but retort. I wasn’t planning on living my life by the rigid standard of conservative Japanese propriety.
“I don’t disagree.” Ben commiserated. “But it’s your own money you’re fighting against.”
“Puberty is the likely explanation for it, but as it stands, it’s clear that women are your vice,” Anita spoke.
“We all have our faults.” I had to justify my embarrassment somehow.
“Which is simultaneously the least harmful to your personal health, yet also arguably the most damaging to your public standing.” Anita finished.
“Better than drugs, booze, or clout addiction.” Ben added with a tip of his glass in my direction.
“Thank y-“
Ben threw back his shot. “And you seem to like the older ladies; not being a pedo is good too. Lord knows we have too many of those in this part of the world.” C’mon man.
“Orphans and mommy issues. Makes total sense.” Anita teased.
“You people need to chill! Give me a break already.”
“In my many decades of being an au pair, I have worked for several wealthy and influential families. Each of whom has had deep dark secrets that I shan’t share. A majority of them were sexual in nature - as they very much tend to be,” Cadbury suddenly piped up. All three of our heads immediately swung in her direction as she began her bizarre speech. “Mr Rh - Bas - has always been a precocious sort, and I feared his psychosexual development would be too early, which is why I added parental blocks to all of his media and internet capable electronics.”
“That was you!?”
“Evidently, this proved ineffectual, and he has carried on regardless. As such, I feel it is my responsibility to suggest what I have personally experienced to be the most surefire answer to our current predicament. We do what every deviant with a need for privacy and the means to achieve it has done since time immemorial, and get him a mistress. Someone hired specifically to take care of his carnal attention, while disguised as someone innocuous, such as a secretary or personal assistant of some sort.”
Jaws were on the floor.
“That works?” I couldn’t believe Anita was even considering this. It was only a couple of casual relationships!
“I can assure you it most certainly does.” Cadbury stated matter-of-factly.
“L-lets keep that on the back burner. At least let my hormones settle.” I shot the idea down. I’m a pervert sure, but damned if I’m going to feed myself that level of degeneracy.
… Maybe Anita was right. I am a butthead.
I’d better switch topics before we dove even deeper into this rabbit hole straight to hell. “Now that we’ve sorted that, let’s get down to business.”
Ben, finally feeling like I’d taken as much of a pummeling as I’d deserved, decided to throw me a bone.
“Good idea. I’d like to go home for once.”
“Excellent! Then let’s make this quick, use any liquid cash I have to short the American housing market starting next year.” I ordered.
Ben stopped short, poured himself another double, swallowed it down, and collapsed in his seat. “I guess I’m sleeping here tonight.”
“Can he even do that?” Anita asked Ben, unsure of the details, but clearly aware that, from her perspective, I was asking for something ridiculous.
Little did they know.
“He can. No way I’m letting it happen, though. Bas, what you’re asking is insane, you don’t bet against the winning horse. The housing market and mortgage-backed securities are the single most reliable and secure investment instrument in existence. I’m not letting you flush your money away.”
“You said something similar when I made you put money into my other investments. As far as you’ve summarized in my financial statements, they seem to be doing pretty damn well.”
“Playing Devil’s advocate is part of my job so that you understand the risks of anything you do with your money. I never fought you on your decisions before this because they made sense to me. Your face sells merch, so you buy into the company that makes it. You have a career in movies, so you also buy into a company that distributes them. Those are sound and viable. What you want to do now, it’s not sensible.” He ranted.
“This isn’t a negotiation, Ben. You’ll put my money where I tell you to.”
“Or what? You’ll fire me and find someone else who will?” Clearly, the booze was affecting him.
“No.” I stated. “You have my back and I trust that. All I’m asking is for you to trust me, too.”
Ben immediately deflated. “Damn it.” He breathed out. “Fine, if you’re gonna make me do this, I’m going to detail everything you stand to lose.”
Ben stood, went behind his desk, pulled out a file - presumably a summary of my assets - and brought it to the table. “You basically pissed away the salary from your first movie, and Love, Actually was chump change - 350K in earnings. So we’ll start with Potter two. 3 million dollars for that was your salary. You were required to contribute 15% of your salary to the Coogan security fund, allocate 17% of your salary for taxes, which includes all the back end accounting I had to do to minimize it, pay 10% to CAA and Anita as your agency, and I receive another 10% as my fee - making it a total of 52%. Your end of day take home is 48% of whatever you make for each movie. This translates to 1.44 million for Chamber of Secrets.”
I nodded along, already knowing all this, but Ben needed to get it off his chest.
“Then we come to your contract for the next three Potter films; 40 million total for movies three, four, and five. Out of which you’ve earned 8 million for Prisoner and 12 million for Goblet, so far. But that’s not all, is it? Out of that 8 million salary, you took half and put it back into funding the production of PoA - netting you 3.1% of all box office earnings for that movie. A movie which made a billion dollars; you made 31 million dollars off that movie. So, you got 1.92 million from your base salary after all taxes and obligations, and 23.25 million after I paid your taxes and charges on your investment return.”
“Sounds about right.” I tried to wrap up, but was quickly interrupted.
“I’m not done. Now, we come to your most recent projects. For Tokyo Drift, you took what they could afford and your ultimate take home hit a million. Goblet got you 12 mil in wages, 6 of that reinvested into production with a 150 million dollar budget, netting you a 4% stake. Anita, how much is the movie set to make?”
“We’ll cross a billion.” She said confidently.
“Right, that means, come this April, after all your taxes and other financial obligations are paid, you get 2.88 million in salary, and somewhere around 30 million in ROI.” Ben took a breath. “On top of that, the remaining 20 million in salary less the taxes and an additional 6 million you’re using to fund the next movie, since David Heyman is setting a cap on your contribution, gives you another 6.72 million.”
“I’m swimming in doubloons. I get it.”
“That’s over 67 million in liquid cash. You’ve not counted your Uniqlo endorsement and other company shares since you’ve put money into them. You’ve barely let a penny sit in your bank account for five minutes before reinvesting where you can. Fast Retailing Co., Netflix, and the little you had to spare went into a few key blue chip funds I picked out. The numbers are still pouring in between growth, dividends, minus the capital gains you have to pay out-”
“Yeah, I can do basic math. My net worth as of today is right around 160 million dollars.”
“That is an unfathomable amount of moolah, Bas, that you’ve pulled out of your ass in five years from nothing!” I could probably have pulled even more with the benefit of my life hack, but I wasn’t here to min max wolf of wall street. I had the first pieces of a plan that I needed to put together. “You want me to take all of that and throw it into a pit? You still wanna go through with it?”
“Well, I’d rather you not touch the Uniqlo and Netflix stuff, but my next batch of movie earnings and whatever else I can spare is fair game, so a cool 50 milli should suffice. I can swing that even with premium payments, yeah?”
Ben was all business. Despite his clear apprehension, I knew he’d do what I told him - I wasn’t giving him a choice, anyway. “How much do you exactly expect to make from this?”
“Probably somewhere around five times what I put in - net profit. The frauds running the economy into the ground are going to have to pay me at least that much.”
“I think I’m gonna hurl.” Anita was understandably looking a little green.
Comments
Peter Z
I just love your character interactions
David Karlsson
The betrayal...
Anonimacho
Author escaped with our money xD. Seriously, I hope he is well.
TheMackAttack
Seems like a great opportunity to go mansion shopping in Los Angeles, Miami, and Las Vegas. All got hammered by the recession but recovered nicely and would help Bas play the part of rich, young playboy.
Sohaib Malik
I think I've heard about Jeremy Irons's Castle in Cork, might drive by sometime. That's what I mean, having a restored castle similar to Hogwarts would be way more cooler than some boring mansion in L.A.
Andrew Mckeown
Wouldn't be the first actor to do something like that over here. Jeremy Irons is pretty well thought of for restoring a castle over in Ireland from some people I know live in the nearby county. With the wealth Bas is building up in the next decade or so the guy could rule like a de facto fucking king of Wales with the soft power he's gonna accrue, in some kinda souped up Hogwarts.
David Karlsson
Can't wait to read Bas meeting HBC, Evanna Lynch and ofc Alan Rickman again. Think there'll be a lot of ribbing for his new playboy image on set
David Karlsson
"I know what you're all thinking. synthetic ICOs, Subprime bonds? Makes no sense, right? Here's Margot Robbie In Bas Rhys' bubblebath to explain..."
Bar Calak
Margot Robbie and Selena Gomez need not be the only cameos lol
Bar Calak
Blue chip stocks are my way of letting the audience inject whatever industry they wish Bas had invested in. You are Ben Wyatt congrats - you invested in social network blue chip stocks.
Bar Calak
The excel spreadsheet I'm using is already a mess lol. Might change how people look at him a little, especially as they also enter a phase where they find themselves changing. Can't lie, I myself like a little bit of historical stock research. Financials will only get more important as Bas gets more of it. Not just earning but spending, budgeting too.
Bar Calak
It's what Bas has been doing since year one. Tutor sessions. His A levels are done.
Bar Calak
I mention it in the chapter that the invested amount will also have to include the premiums - Ben can do the nitty gritty. Sure are, money buys discretion. All stems from japanese idol culture. Doesn't just apply to cute girls in dance outfits. Negotiations with Uniqlo and WB coming after ootp. Anita smells blood in the water.
Sohaib Malik
Then he can go for an A380 private jet; barely around $500 Millions.
Bar Calak
More of an Airbus afficionado myself
Bar Calak
More adventures!
Bar Calak
Practically like winning the lottery
David Karlsson
Should be fun. You know how they like to Embellish things in those kinds of films. Moneyball, big short, wolf of Wall Street etc. I wonder how they'll portray an even more colourful Bas by then? Judging by his heart to heart with Anita in Japan he'll be acting a bit eccentric to rid himself of his child actor image. So they'll probably have a pretty fun interpretation by 2015 when they start filming. He could be a 24-year old self made billionaire by then
David Karlsson
Forget what I said about dates of investing, I forgot it didnt happen instantly. He should still be careful about doing this though as a few of the guys who profited from shorting were later audited multiple times and even interrogated by the FBI. It'd be bad press if it came out I think. So many millions unemployed or homeless in the UK and US alone and one guy makes hundreds of millions? I bet they'd love to smear a well liked scapegoat to take some of the heat at that point. Hopefully Anita and Ben can avert this by then. Uniqlo negotiation should be coming up soonish right? And then the HbP/DH contracts Anita has been waiting for hehe
Rivo
Oh shit, The Big Short is gonna be about Bas as well. That’s gonna be great.
Sohaib Malik
Just a re-read got me thinking if Bas will be buying any cool Castle/Manors to reside in UK or more specifically his Fatherland Wales?
Anonimacho
I thought Bas would invest in social networks. They are not very far from their area of work and in advertising they will do a very important job in the following years.
Pope Yoda I
Wait until they hear about MC shorting the British currency during Brexit and going from multibillionaire to MULTIBILLIONAIRE. He might want to kick off an LLC in Panama to avoid the media shitstorm this would otherwise cause. Good, reasonable reactions from his friends. I expected him to defend himself by discussing that these were all healthy relationships with reasonable expectations, but perhaps that can occur off-camera. I liked the discussion on MCs financial solvency. I'm a huge logistics/finance nerd, which I try and keep actively suppressed. That said, if you feel it wouldn't malign the tone of your story, I wouldn't mind seeing more.
David Karlsson
The tutoring sessions Emma dragged him to. Is that Bas helping them out or is he joining the studying group the whole child cast attend, but to do his A levels?
David Karlsson
All I know about this is from the movie but won't he have to pay through the nose for as long as the market doesn't crash? It's 2 and a half years away in our timeline from this chapter. If he starts 6 months before September and ask him to keep an eye on things? Cadbury's suggestion is wild lol the ultra rich are a different species. A new main character to take over later maybe? I I wonder how much attention shorting the market with such amounts bring? Uniqlo expecting MC to behave like those regressed SK idols I feel could bring some friction later. While it makes sense business wise to live like that we all know what those guys are like behind the scenes. I wonder will there be some expectation for him to remain single for the female fanbase? Emma is a good friend here, and is probably enjoying the private joke when Rupert denies the Gemma rumours out of hand. Thanks for the chapter
Sohaib Malik
By the time he finishes filming Harry Potter films he could flex at people by asking them "what colour is your Boeing Business Jet 747-8?"
MimicReads
Ty🖤
plainMCU
I like this. Bas exploring more of the world around him.
Evertime
YEAH GEDDEM ID SHORT THE MARKET TOO IF I KNEW Maybe pick a couple (thousand) properties on the cheap too
