One Hail of a Meeting
I came to Costa Rica quite a few years back…
about 13 to be exact.
You see, I used to be a broker of medium-sized family-held businesses. You know the kind that make little plastic widgets and sell them by the truckload to GM or GE.
I like to refer to my previous profession as “mergers and acquisitions adviser.”
It sounds a lot sexier than business broker.
Anyway, one day I dropped in on an attorney who was an occasional deal source. She informed me that she had recently spoken to this person she knew who owned a university in Costa Rica and that he’d mentioned a desire to “do something.”
Well, first off, I had no idea that universities were for-profit businesses that could actually be sold.
And, second, where in the name of heaven is Costa Rica?
To make a long story short, it wasn’t long before I found myself on a plane to this mysterious place.
And two years later a deal was sealed by which that university was sold to one of the largest operators of private universities on the planet (Laureate Education, Inc.).
Those two years were the roller coaster ride of my lifetime…
and I don’t even like roller coasters.
Maybe that’s why it was my last deal.
Here’s a tall tales of Costa Rica Guy episode that concerns the pitfalls of my big deal in Costa Rica…
Don William (the owner of the University) had his driver pick us up around 1:30 pm. It was a 30 minute drive from the hotel to campus and there was an important meeting scheduled for 2.
The meeting was with the COO of the public company that had signed a letter of intent to purchase the university.
This meeting was important because as we had been informed, they never ever go through with a deal without a personal visit from this dude.
Don William, on the other hand, had told me in a very serious tone that he was in no mood to negotiate.
In his mind the deal had been sealed.
In fact, he declined to even make the meeting at all, deciding instead to let me handle it.
After all, that was how I was supposed to earn my commission, right?
As we meandered through the busy afternoon traffic I could see dark storm clouds looming over Barva, the 9,000 foot dormant volcano that overlooks the city of Heredia, the “county-seat” of the province with the same name. That should have been an ominous omen of things to come, but being the rainy season, I didn’t give it more than a passing thought.
The traffic had us running a little late and as we entered the meeting room, there sat “the dude” and Louis, the young and extremely buttoned-down MIT educated executive of Mexican heritage who had been the point-man on the deal and the guy we had come to know quite well.
The dude didn’t seem very pleased. Of course, he had been snubbed by Don William, so that could have been the reason (not to mention our slight tardiness, but hey this is Costa Rica and hadn’t anyone informed the dude about “tico time“?).
As was always the case with Don William, he liked to show off by having students from the school’s marque hotel and restaurant management program serve important guests in the most formal manner possible.
So the first round of refreshments were brought in and the meeting ensued.
But another event occurred at that precise moment.
Something I had yet to experience in Costa Rica, but that I have since come to understand is not that infrequent an occurrence in Heredia in the rainy season.
The reason that complicated matters is simple. The roof over our heads was made of tin, and the sound of the hail on the tin made for a deafening roar that drowned out any possibility of a coherent business meeting.
So we were ushered to another more interior room where the noise was still significant, but a tad reduced.
Another round of refreshments welcomed us.
By this point the dude was a bit more than perturbed. Not to mention the fact that we had informed him that negotiation was not on the agenda of this meeting.
Seems for some reason that he brought with him the notion that negotiation was exactly the agenda of this meeting.
By the time of the second round of refreshments, the dude had had enough.
I, along with my two partners, eyed each other with dismay (and a bit amused by the spectacle) of this hot-shot VIP completely losing it.
The hail finally passed and we were able to conclude the meeting. When Don William got wind of what had happened he was none too pleased.
He called me into his office the next morning and informed me in his matter of fact Latino macho style that in no uncertain terms would he ever sell his university to this bleeping batch of hijueputas.
I nodded and agreed on the outside (while on the inside visions of bankruptcy and total financial ruin danced in my head).
Needless to say, through the grace of god and my steadfast determination to not let the last two years go up in smoke, I was able to calm things down and smooth them over enough for the deal to somehow proceed.
But I’ll never forget this little foray into the tall tales of Costa Rica Guy of that fateful afternoon meeting and the hailstorm that almost did my Costa Rica deal (and my life) in.
image credit: tushygalore66 via Compfight cc
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