テーマパーク2
you spoke of. He has, in the famous phrase, 'made me an offer I can't refuse.' He wants me to handle a debt issue, corporate debentures, bigger than anything this town has ever seen. Anything Europe has ever seen."
"You should be ordering champagne."
"Not this time." He turned back to study the river. "The whole thing stinks."
"Who're the players?"
"It's supposedly to raise capital for the Mino Industries Group. I've been 'asked' to underwrite the bonds, then unload them with minimal fanfare and keep a low profile." He looked back. "But it's almost fraud, Michael. I don't think there's anything behind them at all. Nothing. The beneficiaries are just phony Mino Industries shadow corpo¬rations. Only nobody will know it. You see, the bonds are zero-coupons, paying no interest till they mature ten years from now. So it will be a full decade before the buyers find out they've acquired paper with no backing."
"Won't be the first time the sheep got sheared by a hustler."
"Michael, I'm not a hustler," he snapped. "And there's more. They're so-called bearer bonds. Which means there's no record of who holds them. Just one more trick to keep this thing below the radar."
"Typical. 'Bearer bonds' always sell like hotcakes in high-tax locales like the Benelux countries. That mythical Belgian dentist can buy them anonymously and screw the tax man."
"Yes, that's part of what makes Eurocurrency ideal for this, all that homeless money floating around over here. No government is really responsible for keeping track of it. In fact, every effort has been made to ensure that these de¬bentures appeal to greed. Their yield will float, pegged at two full points above the thirty-year British government bond, the gilt. As lead underwriter I'll have the main re¬sponsibility, but I'm also supposed to form a syndicate of Japanese brokerage houses here—Nomura, Daiwa, Sumitomo, the others—to make sure the offering goes off without a hitch. But that precaution will hardly be neces¬sary. At those interest rates, they should practically fly out the door." He sighed. "Which is a good thing, because . . . because, Michael, the amount I'm being asked to under¬write is a hundred billion dollars."
"And that's just for the first year, right?"
Nogami looked up, startled. "How did you know?"
"Call it a lucky guess." He took a deep breath. So that's where
"You should be ordering champagne."
"Not this time." He turned back to study the river. "The whole thing stinks."
"Who're the players?"
"It's supposedly to raise capital for the Mino Industries Group. I've been 'asked' to underwrite the bonds, then unload them with minimal fanfare and keep a low profile." He looked back. "But it's almost fraud, Michael. I don't think there's anything behind them at all. Nothing. The beneficiaries are just phony Mino Industries shadow corpo¬rations. Only nobody will know it. You see, the bonds are zero-coupons, paying no interest till they mature ten years from now. So it will be a full decade before the buyers find out they've acquired paper with no backing."
"Won't be the first time the sheep got sheared by a hustler."
"Michael, I'm not a hustler," he snapped. "And there's more. They're so-called bearer bonds. Which means there's no record of who holds them. Just one more trick to keep this thing below the radar."
"Typical. 'Bearer bonds' always sell like hotcakes in high-tax locales like the Benelux countries. That mythical Belgian dentist can buy them anonymously and screw the tax man."
"Yes, that's part of what makes Eurocurrency ideal for this, all that homeless money floating around over here. No government is really responsible for keeping track of it. In fact, every effort has been made to ensure that these de¬bentures appeal to greed. Their yield will float, pegged at two full points above the thirty-year British government bond, the gilt. As lead underwriter I'll have the main re¬sponsibility, but I'm also supposed to form a syndicate of Japanese brokerage houses here—Nomura, Daiwa, Sumitomo, the others—to make sure the offering goes off without a hitch. But that precaution will hardly be neces¬sary. At those interest rates, they should practically fly out the door." He sighed. "Which is a good thing, because . . . because, Michael, the amount I'm being asked to under¬write is a hundred billion dollars."
"And that's just for the first year, right?"
Nogami looked up, startled. "How did you know?"
"Call it a lucky guess." He took a deep breath. So that's where