Aster Scharpe was survived by his two sons. The erstwhile scion of the Scharpe family and the major shareholder of Sharpe Group of Companies had left behind a sizeable estate which was divided almost equally among the two sons. But there was a curious fact which caused a stir in the business circles.
Narmer Scharpe the elder son of Aster was currently Managing Director and Chairman of the largest company of the group. And Seth Scharpe the younger son, half-brother to Narmer, inherited 22000 shares -a 22% shareholding in this same company. What made the matter more interesting was that six months ago when Aster was still alive, the two sons and the father had a very public disagreement. Since then Narmer made up with his father but Seth continued to keep aloof and after a few weeks, he had moved out of the house and purchased a separate flat downtown.
In the days immediately following Aster's death, Narmer bought a lot of shares of the company where he was MD; almost 6% of the total. Only stopping when the share price rose more than 15 %. Seth also surfaced, he managed to buy 2000 before the prices crept higher. The other board members started to sound out the brothers. while Narmer insisted that he had the boards support and had made sure that he had enough shares falling in his favor. Seth refused to engage but gave hints that he was not OK with Narmer being in charge.
A few days before the board meeting to decide the new MD and Chairman Seth got an offer from a group of five board members. They would vote in his favor if he put himself up as a rival candidate for the post of MD. Seth refused as they expected he would. Then they put forward the real deal. They wanted Seth to support their candidate. Seth replied that he had no problem with that but what was in it for him? If they bought some of the share holding from him at 20% premium over the current price, he would agree. The deal was struck at buying 7000 shares at a premium of 18%
On the day of the board meeting the two brothers called a joint press conference where Seth declared that he did not want to be involved in the company affairs and was pledging his shares with his brother for the next ten years. He went on to make public that he had sold 7000 shares to the other board members for a premium. At the end of the day Narmer was still MD and the share prices has risen higher than ever. Since their father died the brothers working in concert had secured Narmer's place and raised the share prices to near double. All of it by acting on the advice their father had given them six months ago, when he was diagnosed as critically ill.
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