As he walked out of the ninety-minute defence of his thesis, Daniel felt relief. Professor Yu and the panel while having tested him in depth, confirmed that they would be approving his thesis and the formal confirmation would be sent through once everyone completed their graduation thesis defence.
After turning on his mobile, Daniel skimmed through the missed calls and text messages received while he was incommunicado and noticed three separate calls from Ralph and two from Uncle Cole. While he was tempted to call Uncle Cole, he knew that dealing with company matters had to have preference, given the time he had taken from the office.
After three rings Ralph answered, "Good Afternoon CEO Wu."
Resisting the urge to laugh at the formal nature of the greeting, Daniel understood the hidden message in the address and asked, "I am guessing one of my extended family members or their hangers on are there as they have found out about what I tasked you with?"
"Correct CEO Wu. The matter is urgent, and it would be appreciated if you could hurry back to the office."
"Ralph, pass the phone over but after the call is ended, once whoever is there has disappeared call me back."
"Yes CEO Wu."
A couple of seconds silence came across the line before Daniel heard "You disrespectful brat. Just because you are CEO you think you can swan around."
"Third Uncle, it is a pleasure to hear your voice. While I do not have to explain myself to you, you need to have your facts right before you throw accusations like that around. I video conferenced at home at 4am for two hours with a potential business partner in the United States, before drafting material that was sent to the legal department to follow through. I stopped long enough to ensure Sebastian went to school, before heading to a meeting with Chairman Meng for a preliminary meeting about cooperation with the Meng Group. And you, were not even in your office when I arrived after having done that work."
"Just you wait, you ungrateful brat. Things will change when Sebastian turns eighteen."
"Third Uncle, I have heard that time and time again from you, second uncle and everyone else in the family, but you forget while the Wu family controls fifty five percent of the shares, I have the support of the outside shareholders, so unless you have something necessary for business to say, get out of my office and leave my assistant alone."
With that Daniel terminated the telephone call and knowing that it would take Ralph at least ten minutes to get his third uncle from his office, Daniel dialled Uncle Cole.
As he answered Daniel said, "Uncle Cole, my apologies but I have just come out of my graduation thesis defence."
"How did it go Daniel?"
"As I expected, the usual grilling from the professors, but they indicated at the end I satisfied the requirements."
"As you should. The more that I have thought about what you concluded, the more that I am certain you are right. You know my view, and once it has been formally announced your thesis has been approved, I want your permission to use it to implement some of the recommendations…"
"I told you that you could, but that is not the reason you called, is it?"
"You know me too well Daniel. Since you left my office this morning, your second and third uncle have been hitting the phones to convince other businesspeople to refuse to deal with you and the non-family shareholders to support moves to dump you as CEO, next week…"
"When Sebastian turns eighteen and gets control personally of the twelve percent of company shares my parents left him. I expected that, Uncle Cole and have been working on enough deals that will convince the non-family shareholders to support me. The last of those deals I finalised this morning and has already been signed."
"You know that will not satisfy them."
"Uncle Cole, you seem to be too worried about my company, rather than your own."
Sighing Cole Meng responded "Not really. I know what my son and daughter-in-law have been talking to your second and third uncles about…"
"Arranging that their so-called princess marry Sebastian. I am not blind. Sebastian is infatuated with her and they promote it because they think it will give them an in with the Meng Group, supporting their claim to throw me from my position."
Silence filled the line for a few seconds, before Cole asked "I need a huge favour from you before the celebration for my granddaughter and Sara's birthday tonight…"
"They agreed to include your granddaughter?"
"Only under the threat of no venue and having to pay for it themselves."
After a weak chuckle Cole added "Can you meet me outside the Civil Affairs building in say an hour. I will explain everything then about the favour I need."