Chapter 528: Buffett’s Dinner

Tuesday, September 24, 1991, evening.

New York, Midtown Manhattan.

The cold evening rain came without warning. A fine drizzle cut obliquely across Third Avenue, blurring the warm yellow lights in the street-side shop windows into patches of hazy light.

The wipers of the extended Toyota Century swung left and right at a fixed frequency, having just scraped away the water film on the windshield, only to be covered by new rainwater the next second.

In the back seat, Frank neatly arranged a stack of papers just torn off the fax machine and handed them to Satsuki with both hands.

"Eldest Miss, the statistics from Salomon’s finance department at 5 p.m."

"Mm."

Satsuki took them and pushed aside the thin blanket that had been resting on her knees.

Starting from nine o’clock this morning, she first listened to a two-hour report from the due diligence team in her hotel suite, and then spent the afternoon at Carlyle.

She had worn her high heels from morning till night, and by now her heels were faintly aching.

However, seeing the numbers on the paper diluted that soreness and swelling quite a bit.

"The renewal ratio of commercial paper is forty-five percent," Frank reported from the side, his speaking pace half a beat faster than usual. "It was less than thirty percent the day before yesterday. Among the fourteen institutions that previously suspended authorization, two took the initiative to call today to inquire about the process for resuming transactions, and another four pension funds on the sidelines placed repurchase orders again this afternoon."

"What about the stock price?"

"Closed up eleven percent."

"Eleven, huh..."

Satsuki put those pages back on her knees and leaned back into her seat.

A two-page joint statement. Not even a specific capital injection figure was written on it.

Just with the three characters "Saionji" appearing next to Salomon’s name, Wall Street’s panic curve, which had been plunging all the way down, abruptly took a turn.

To be honest, it was quite fulfilling.

Of course, Satsuki was also very clear about how much of this sense of accomplishment was propped up by Saionji’s money, and how much was simply the market scaring itself until it grew tired, finally wanting to find a reason to catch its breath.

"In addition..." Frank’s voice paused. "Mr. Gutfreund called for the third time this afternoon. He hopes that you will attend Salomon’s special shareholders’ meeting the day after tomorrow as a partner and say a few words at the meeting."

"The third time?"

"Yes."

"He is even more anxious than the market."

Satsuki’s fingertips gently scraped the edge of the fax paper.

Three calls in one day. The last time someone in the United States had looked for her so persistently was last year’s RTC liquidator whom she had left hanging for forty-eight hours.

"Reply as usual, itinerary undecided."

"Understood."

Outside the car window, an old-fashioned green and white wooden building appeared at the end of the rain curtain. The vintage awning at the entrance extended along the street corner, its edge printed with a line of English letters that had been somewhat worn out by the wind and rain.

Smith & Wollensky.

Satsuki looked at the sign and remained silent for two seconds.

...Of all places, it had to be this one.

This was the restaurant Buffett chose.

The other party probably just felt that the steaks here were solid and it was close to the hotel.

Of course, he could not possibly know that in another life that no longer existed, there was a young analyst struggling desperately on Wall Street who, after completing every major project, would run over here alone and order a whole bone-in ribeye to reward herself.

Nor could he know that last summer, that same person revisited the old place in a seventeen-year-old body, only to be utterly defeated by a steak.

Well, whatever, she would definitely be able to finish a whole piece today.

...

The private room in the corner of the second floor had been cleared out in advance.

Standing outside the door were two men in black security for Saionji, plus a robust entourage member who was obviously from Berkshire.

Buffett sat on the inner side of the private room.

Spread out in front of him was today’s The Wall Street Journal. On the lower half of the front page, the summary of the joint statement between Salomon and Saionji occupied a full two columns.

"Miss Saionji."

Buffett looked up, folded the newspaper, and put it aside.

"Today, the entire Wall Street is reading those two pages of yours."

"Mr. Buffett flatters me."

Satsuki sat down opposite him.

"Those two pages were written by Salomon’s PR department; I merely signed my name at the end."

"Sometimes, a signature is worth more than the content."

Buffett smiled and didn’t continue.

The waiter handed over the menu. Buffett didn’t even look at it, directly ordering a well-done T-bone steak along with a large portion of hash browns.

Satsuki opened the menu.

Her gaze lingered on the bone-in ribeye column for half a second, then moved down a few rows very decisively and rationally.

"A filet mignon, six ounces. Medium-rare."

"And a glass of ice water."

Six ounces.

The smallest tier on the menu.

People always have to learn lessons from failure.

Buffett watched her close the menu and asked casually, "Have you been here before?"

"Once."

Satsuki handed the menu back to the waiter.

"I was a bit too greedy with my order that time."

"Couldn’t finish it?"

"...Couldn’t finish it."

Buffett nodded and evaluated solemnly, "That was a very typical investment that overestimated its own digestive capacity."

Satsuki glared at him.

Then she failed to keep a straight face and laughed out.

...

When the steak was served, the rain fell even harder. The raindrops pounded against the glass window of the private room, fine and dense.

Satsuki cut a small piece of filet mignon and put it into her mouth.

Mm.

Still that same taste.

The moment the meat juices melted on the tip of her tongue, she even felt a bit dazed.

Those nights in her past life that stretched into the early morning, the cold coffee in the conference room, and the M&A valuation models jumping on the computer screen all seemed to drift back from a very, very far place along this familiar charred aroma.

At that time, she sat in that booth downstairs, devouring her food while plotting in her mind how to squeeze into the team list for the next project.

Although she could be considered successful and accomplished in her past life, she would never have imagined that one day she would be sitting in a private room upstairs, with Warren Buffett opposite her.

And what they were going to discuss was how to invite the King of Wall Street down from his throne.

"The business of this place will probably get better and better in the future."

Satsuki put down her knife and fork and spoke suddenly.

"Oh? Why?"

"I guess someone in the future will be willing to spend a lot of money just to sit in my current position and have a meal with you."

Buffett looked like he had heard a very absurd investment proposal.

"Then that person must not have calculated the accounts carefully."

He extended a finger and tapped on the tablecloth.

"The cost of a steak, plus the time of a sixty-one-year-old old man for an hour. No matter how you calculate the intrinsic value of this transaction, it cannot support that price."

"What he buys is probably not a steak."

"That’s even worse. Spending a lot of money to buy something whose value one cannot even explain clearly is the most typical bad business."

Buffett thought for a moment and added another sentence.

"However, if there really is such a person, that money had better not go into my pocket. Take it to do something truly useful, and this meal can at least be justified on the books."

Satsuki lowered her head to take a sip of ice water, pressing the uncontainable smile at the corner of her mouth behind the rim of the cup.

You really end up doing exactly that in the future.

And you do it for twenty years.

"Alright."

Buffett ate a little half-piece of steak, wiped his mouth with a napkin, spread out the newspaper again, and his index finger landed on the last paragraph of the joint statement.

"Let’s talk about this sentence you deleted."

Satsuki’s hand holding the water cup paused for a moment.

"...How do you know I deleted something?"

"Because this statement is too clean."

Buffett said, "Given John’s personality, in a statement co-signed with Saionji, it’s impossible for him not to leave half a sentence for himself."

"Even if it’s just ’the current management will continue to advance the recovery plan’, he could take it to the board of directors and use it for a long time."

"Yet there isn’t a single word of it here."

Satsuki had no intention of hiding it either.

"He wrote it. He added it with his own hands, and I made him delete it."

"Then he must be very uneasy right now."

"That’s why he called three times in a row, inviting me to the shareholders’ meeting the day after tomorrow."

Buffett leaned back into his chair.

"That meeting was scheduled three weeks ago. When the scandal just escalated, several public pension funds jointly pressured the board of directors, demanding that management give shareholders an explanation in person."

"What John feared most originally was this meeting. Everyone sitting in the audience lost money, and none of them came to hear good news."

"Yet he now has a statement signed by me in his hands."

Satsuki poked the remaining small piece of filet mignon on her plate with her fork.

"He will stand on stage and turn ’Saionji supports Salomon’ bit by bit into ’Saionji supports the current management’. Then he will use this in exchange for the shareholders’ trust."

Buffett looked at her.

"You anticipated he would do this long ago?"

"I didn’t just anticipate it."

Satsuki raised her head and tilted it slightly.

"I deliberately left it for him."

Buffett’s hand holding the napkin stopped.

The private room fell quiet for a moment, leaving only the sound of rain outside the window.

"Mr. Buffett. You are the major shareholder and also a director."

"You can propose replacing the management at the board meeting right now, and given the current situation, it has a high probability of passing."

Satsuki drew a line on the tablecloth with her fingertip.

"But then what?"

"What will tomorrow’s newspapers write? ’Berkshire seizes power amidst crisis’, ’Japanese financial cliques join forces with American shareholders to force the King of Wall Street off his throne’. A CEO who has just been targeted by regulators will overnight become a tragic figure driven from power by capital forces."

"And those people who already dislike Saionji will follow this story all the way to ’foreign capital meddling in U.S. Treasury primary dealers’."

When she spoke to this last sentence, her tone became a bit lighter.

Buffett could probably tell that "those people" she mentioned were not a general reference.

"But if it is Mr. Gutfreund himself, in front of all shareholders and a room full of cameras, who publicly distorts the partner’s position—"

"Then the person who stands up to correct him is not seizing power."

"They are merely fulfilling the obligation of clarifying the facts."

Buffett remained silent for several seconds.

Then he slowly began to smile.

"So you handed him a rope and stood to the side, waiting for him to slip the noose around his neck himself?"

"Hey, don’t make it sound so scary."

Satsuki blinked, looking innocent.

"He wanted the rope himself; I just didn’t stop him."

Buffett looked at the young girl opposite him who was acting innocent with a straight face, and shook his head with a smile.

Satsuki also smiled, then put her knife and fork together and laid them on the side of the plate.

"However, Mr. Gutfreund can probably breathe a sigh of relief this time."

"Oh?"

"The joint statement has already been issued, and my due diligence team is right inside 7 World Trade Center now. This is already the best proof."

Satsuki picked up the napkin and gently wiped the corner of her mouth.

"At least until today, Salomon will not suddenly stop breathing next week."

Buffett finished listening and nodded.

"John should be very happy."

"Let’s hope so."

Satsuki picked up her water cup, her tone becoming a bit brisk.

"After all, he has called me quite a bit for this matter over the last two days."

"Now that Saionji has done everything it can do, what the shareholders’ meeting the day after tomorrow will turn out to be depends entirely on Mr. Gutfreund’s own ability."

"Speaking of which..."

Buffett glanced at her.

"When you called me that day to tell me John invited you to New York, I really didn’t expect things to progress so smoothly."

As he spoke, he bent down and took an unsealed kraft paper envelope from the briefcase at his feet, pushing it to the center of the table.

"However, there is one thing you might have known a few hours later than me."

The opening of the envelope revealed the corner of a stack of photocopies. The header of the topmost page was printed with the internal archive number of Salomon’s legal department.

Satsuki’s gaze stopped on that number.

"...The Washington talks in June?"

"You know about it?"

"My legal team found that the version numbers of the official minutes were disconnected, jumping directly from the third version to the seventh version."

"Salomon’s explanation was that the middle copies involved internal legal opinions and were still under review."

"Well, those copies are all here now."

Buffett’s fingers pressed on the envelope.

"This afternoon, Salomon’s legal counsel came to the hotel to see me."

"He brought a written document and asked me to sign as a director, formally requesting to review all internal materials related to regulatory matters."

He smiled.

"I signed. And two hours later, this envelope was delivered to my room."

Satsuki was stunned for a moment, then reacted immediately.

A director’s written request for review.

With this piece of paper, that legal counsel handing over the documents would not count as "betraying" his CEO; he was merely fulfilling his obligations to the board of directors according to the law.

No matter how the Treasury investigates or how the board holds him accountable in the future, he can produce this signature to prove that when it was time to hand over the things, he did so at the very first instance.

Gutfreund told him to hide the things well.

In turn, he stuffed both the things and his own retreat into Buffett’s briefcase.

"...What a smart lawyer."

When Satsuki said this, her tone carried an indescribable flavor.

"Lawyers always know which bridge is going to collapse earlier than their clients."

Buffett put the envelope back into the briefcase.

"That’s why they are always the first batch of people to get off the bridge."

"Have you read it?"

"Read a part of it."

Buffett clicked the lock shut.

"It’s enough."

He didn’t say what was written inside, and Satsuki didn’t ask.

That "enough" had already said everything.

"You can promise John for the shareholders’ meeting the day after tomorrow."

Satsuki glanced at him.

"It seems I have to return a call to Mr. Gutfreund."

"Just tell him you will attend."

Buffett picked up his knife and fork again.

"As for the meeting, if John really turns ’Saionji supports Salomon’ into ’Saionji supports him’, it is best for you to clarify it yourself."

"If you say it, shareholders will only see a major shareholder fighting for power with the CEO. But if it comes from you yourself—"

"Then it is simply the facts."

"Right."

Buffett cut a piece of steak that had already grown cold.

"After you finish speaking, leave the rest to me. The board of directors, the Treasury, Congress, and that crowd of reporters at the door."

"That sounds like a very hard errand."

"It is indeed very hard."

Buffett sighed.

"I originally thought I could come to New York a few fewer times this year."

Satsuki looked at the single bite of filet mignon remaining on her plate and happily forked it up.

Six ounces, just right.

"Then every time you come to New York in the future, just consider it a special trip to eat steak."

"That’s not a bad idea."

Buffett nodded.

"At least that way, this account still adds up."