Tag: offer

Let’s Make a Deal

Like I was saying in my previous post, every time I talked to Pierre his offer went down. And our negotiation was taking months. He always said he would get back to me after checking into more things. For someone who showed no interest for over 2 years, he sure had to check into a lot of things. The wait was excruciating. I don’t think Pierre found a partner, which allows me to sleep better. I don’t want to think he’s out there taking advantage of someone else.

We finally had our last negotiation meeting in March. Pierre’s offer was very small. He knew he had me backed into a corner. He told me I should think about it and get back to him. There was nothing to think about. My only other options were to close with the hope of getting some money for the used equipment or filing a lawsuit against a major hockey franchise. Reluctantly, I took the deal. I was totally deflated.

But wait… there’s more… bad news. How can that be? How can things get worse? Pierre said it would take him a month to get the money transferred from his retirement fund. Seriously? It will take 30 days to convert $10,000 from a retirement fund and transfer it into a checking account? And yes, he’s old enough to do it without penalty. Was he lying? I don’t know. At this point I just needed to go with the flow and get it over with. Pierre had not partnered with me since we started, there was no reason to expect better from him now. I acquiesced. There was no joy in Mudville that day.

Negotiations Begin

I didn’t have a good feeling about this. Pierre asked me how much money I wanted. Since he was 1/3 owner, it would’ve been nice if he were to give me 1/3 of the losses – especially considering he was able to write that much off his income taxes and he had never put in his original seed money. So I started there, or maybe a little bit over that to leave room for negotiation. He actually suggested that I should keep 10% ownership in case the restaurant made money in the future. I was surprised, but it made sense that I might be able to recoup some of my money. He put me off, saying he was still checking into the contract extension, finding a partner, etc. I was dying inside. I needed for this to be over. I was out of money and my alternatives were even more painful, closing or suing a multi-billion dollar hockey franchise. He had me by the proverbial testicles.

This was a very simple business and Pierre’s restaurant expert had already delved into our physical, mental, and financial inventories. Negotiations shouldn’t take months, but Pierre was dragging his feet. Every time we talked, he offered me less money – he always had a different reason. I continued to bring up retaining 10% ownership. First he said ‘no’ as any partners he might find wouldn’t agree to something like that. Then he said ‘no’ as it wouldn’t work well that way. Then he just said ‘no’. I don’t know why, it was his idea in the first place and now he’s acting like I was asking for unreasonable things. Once again, I was just confused by what was going on.

Meanwhile, Kyle and Pierre were visiting various bars for ideas to improve the bar. Wait, what? Why didn’t they do this from the beginning? Was this Pierre’s plan all along? Pierre would do nothing – except have Todd and his Minions torture me – until I had used up all my money to get the business started so Pierre could swoop in and take over? Had I been conned by a figure skating coach? I was crushed, financially and now mentally.