Captain Bob
It was in 1989 when I was running the Global Derivatives business of Bankers Trust. I was in London, one of our three big offices in the Derivatives business, in addition to New York and Tokyo. Suddenly I had an E.F. Hutton moment when the entire trading room goes quiet for a moment as someone from the derivatives desk yells over to me across the floor the Robert Maxwell is on the phone for me. To put this into context, in 1989, Robert Maxwell was a high-profile “Billionaire” who owned the big London tabloid, The Daily Mirror. He was very much the Donald Trump, Rupert Murdoch and Harvey Weinstein, all rolled into one, of his era. He was controversial and outspoken. The expression “larger than life” was made for Robert Maxwell. When I picked up the phone I immediately recognized the jovial voice that was in the news every day. He explained to me that he had had breakfast with my Chairman, Charlie Sanford and that Charlie had referred him to me as a specialist on investing in Argentina. He needed me to come over to his office, then a well-known London landmark called Maxwell House (yes, just like the coffee). I agreed to see him there at 5pm.
My next call was to Charlie’s office and I was told he was traveling back to New York and that I should talk to Ralph MacDonald, the head of Merchant Banking. I called Ralph and was put straight through. Ralph answered with his normal cigar-chomping chuckle. He knew why I was calling. I had worked for Ralph for a long time and interacted with him regularly since he was a member of the Management Committee at the time. He was a very smart and tough guy who was as pragmatic as they come. He explained through his laughter that Charlie had had breakfast with Maxwell in London and that Maxwell had asked him about making investments in Argentina, an idea he had gotten into his head when he heard that the Argentine President, Carlos Menem, was a populist who loved football (soccer) and was a fan of Maxwell’s football team, the Derby Club. He had asked Charlie for a smart banker to help him. Charlie immediately told him that he had just the guy for him, Rich Marin. When I first heard this I wondered if Charlie had forgotten that earlier that year I had been moved from running the Emerging Markets Department (a business I had created with dozens of trips to Latin America over the last four years) to running Global Derivatives. They were dramatically different businesses and it was hard to believe Charlie would forget who ran a business that threw $300 million to his bottom line. But then it hit me. Robert Maxwell was a large, corpulent guy and I was a large corpulent guy. Charlie was what you might call a redneck from Savannah, Georgia, and it was just like him to focus on elemental things like physical size.
When I got yo Maxwell House I was taken up to Maxwell’s personal residence floor on the top of the building. When I entered his suite he rushed up to me like a long-lost friend and gave me a big hug. He then said we were going the next day to Buenos Aires and he handed me a ticket for the Corcorde flight to Miami and then on to B.A. We would be in Argentina for three weeks he said. I explained carefully that the seasons in the Southern Hemisphere were reversed and the I would need to fly to my home in NYC and get the proper clothes. As a big man, he understood immediately and when I said I would find my own way to B.A. and meet him there in two days, he agreed. I told him I knew the city well. He recovered from the disappointment of the attempt to overwhelm me with the Concorde ticket (I had flown the “sharp-nose” eight times by then) and urged me to sit and talk for a minute. He introduced me to his team, which included the head of MTV Europe (one of his media properties) and said we would all be in Argentina together to find acquisition properties. He made a big flourish when I asked about his investment horizon, of saying that he was investing for his grandchildren. I didn’t have the heart to pop his bubble by noting that both he and his grandchildren might never get his capital back out of Argentina…ever.
When I got to the Plaza Hotel in Buenos Aires, Maxwell had reserved two entire floors for the team. One floor was for him and his personal aides and the meet & greet rooms. The other floor is where the rest of us on his team had rooms. He made sure my MTV friend, Mark, and I got the two suites (much smaller than Maxwell’s, but glorious nonetheless), denoting us as the two team honchos. That first day in B.A. I connected with my local banking colleagues who were shocked that I had gotten dragged into this folly. Remember, to them, I was the EVP who had been their boss’, boss’ boss just months before. So I had a cadre of great local research and analytical support on tap as needed. I also reached out to some of my mover & shaker local contacts and they were thrilled to hear that there was a new sheep in town waiting to get fleeced. One of my tasks was also to coordinate high-level meetings for Maxwell with the Argentine government officials of the highest order. That included a visit to the Menem estancia where we were entertained by Menem’s adolescent daughter and a short, highly-photographed football volley between Menem and Maxwell. The list of dignitaries went on when Maxwell announced that we were being invited to an official state house dinner to celebrate the truce between England and Argentina, formally ending the hostilities between them from the Falklands/Malvinas war. It was a special night at Evita’s Casa Rosada.
We spent our weeks looking over every property that wasn’t nailed down. Everything was for sale and my job was to keep Captain Bob from making a complete fool of himself. When I returned to NYC I was summoned to Ian and Kevin Maxwell’s offices at MacMillan, the publishing icon that Captain Bob had bought and put into his sons’ hands. They wanted to keep tabs on Captain Bob’s craziness. Once they realized I was on their side, they calmed down and invited me to dinner. We were joined by their sister, Ghislaine, who spent the night selling me on using her nascent luxury corporate gift business.
I have lots and lots of memories and stories to tell about my Captain Bob chapter both in B.A. and back in London, but I thought of this dinner with Captain Bob’s well-heeled daughter because I’m watching the Jeffrey Epstein story on Netflix. Ghislaine was, of course, Jeffrey’s main procurer of underaged poon-tang. I guess once a luxury gift person, always a luxury gift person. Captain Bob would have been so proud, if only the “Mossad” hadn’t tossed him off his yacht that fateful night in 1991 in the Canary Islands. I guess Jeffrey got the exit strategy from Captain Bob through the lovely and totally innocent Ghislaine.