He’d have to think about what he was going to do with this one. If he decided to leave it in tact, the first thing to go would be the name. Derek wouldn’t leave that man’s name attached to any aspect of the business.
The Corporation was a major producer of medical equipment. They actually made a quality product but had a horrible marketing department. If the right people were brought in, he may decide to keep the company together.
As he studied through the papers over the next several days, he discovered David had embezzled millions of dollars. That was one of the reasons the company was in such a weak state. He’d leave the legal department to look further into it. He wouldn’t mind if the man ended up in prison. It would just be icing on the cake.
The minute David had placed the corporation on the stock market; he had investors to be accountable too. Since David had been stealing from those investors for years, they were going to want answers. He smiled some more as he thought about David’s life continuing to go down the drain.
He left all the staff at their jobs for now but had memos sent out notifying them they were going to have to defend their jobs. He normally left all of that to his staff but since this operation was personal to him he’d be conducting many of those interviews, himself.
Derek had a couple of trusted associates coming with him and he was like a kid on Christmas morning. It was time to go to his new corporation and do some investigating. He’d made the decision to keep the company as it was but there would be a lot of people losing their jobs and a lot of new hires. It would take months to get it all straightened out.
He was getting ready to leave, when his father walked into the office. “Where are you off to, son?” his dad asked.
“I’m going over to the new company today. I have to eliminate some staff and get the HR set up to hire new employees,” he answered as he headed towards the elevator.
“I’ll come with you, since I’m a great judge of character,” he said, as he climbed in the elevator with him.
“That would be great. I could use an extra person I trust,” Derek answered. He knew his father had a soft heart but he was also a shrewd business man and would know who could be trusted to stay on and who was far too loyal to David to be trusted.
“Son, I know this has been your dream since that dirt bag hurt you but you need to remember most of these employees didn’t even know David Freeman. They’re just like you or I, trying to make a living,” his father reasoned.
“I hate it when you’re right, but I know. Most of the executive positions will be replaced. I simply can’t trust people who worked closest with David. I’m not worried about any of the factory workers. My staff will make sure all of their background checks pass but other than that I’ll leave them alone, well not completely leave them alone,” he added.
“What?” his dad asked, with confusion.
“David was by far underpaying the factory workers, while padding the executives’ pockets. They are barely making minimum wage,” Derek said with anger. “I’m going to raise their pay and offer bonuses for high work production and early completion of projects.”
“That’s why you’re so successful son, you actually care about the core of the company,” his father praised him. Derek knew what it was like to barely be able to survive and didn’t like that feeling. He always treated his employees’ well. He had a very low turnover rate. Once people came to work for one of his corporations, they didn’t leave.
“The bastard didn’t even offer health insurance for his factory workers. It really is no wonder he was losing everything,” Derek continued to rage.
“Well just remember these people are scared about their jobs and don’t know you’re different. It would be a really good idea if the first thing you do is call a meeting and reassure them,” Daniel said.
“You’re right, again. I wasn’t planning on doing that but I’ll call a meeting first thing tomorrow. I want to spend today looking around and then eliminating some of the dead weight,” Derek told him.
“Sounds like a plan, son,” Daniel offered, as he slapped Derek on the back.
They rode to the new office in silence. Derek was immensely satisfied to see the crew working on the new sign out front. The old one was down and the new sign was going up with his corporate name on it. Each time he saw that, his heart skipped a beat with pride.
He knew he had to take apart most of the corporations he bought up. He made far too much money not to split them apart, plus some of the companies were unfixable. He did love to keep the good ones together though, turning them back around. He could provide so many jobs for people and the feeling of success, as he fixed them, was what drove him.