I got back.
"That fucking surveyor," Paolo said when I shut the door to his office. Beneath his window the orange men burrowing around in the white expanse of Paveletskaya Square looked like an army of angry ants. "That fucking Cossack."
"Happy New Year, Paolo."
"It is almost finished," he said. "The client is almost happy. Everyone is almost happy. Except for this surveyor. Where is he, Nicholas?"
"I don't know."
"You know, sometimes I wish we never saw the Cossack at all. Why must it be project finance? Why must it be the British Virgin Islands? Always the British Virgin Islands. How are you, by the way?"
8
The truth is that, in those days, even the bankers didn't care all that much whether the banks they worked for got their money back. They earned their bonuses just for shelling it out, and would probably have moved on or upstairs before the Russians or whoever got a chance to default. All the Western banks were desperate to do business in Moscow, because everyone else seemed to be, and most of them weren't too fussed about the destination of their loans. Half the time, when they were lending to one of the huge energy or metals firms, the bankers handed over the cash with no security at all: the Russians were drowning in petrodollars, and anyway the firms' bossesknew they would get even richer in the long run if they observed the niceties--right?
All the same, because the Cossack's project company was new and had no credit history, there were boxes that we had to tick. We'd received the letters from the regional governor, committing him to supporting the project. Narodneft had signed reassuring agreements about how much oil it would pump from its northern fields to the terminal once it was operational, and the export fees it would pay. We had statements of interest from prospective buyers for the oil in Holland and America. The banks had taken out political risk insurance (covering them in case of expropriations or coups). The main contract for the loan was watertight and oil proof.
That wasn't quite enough for the banks to release the first tranche of cash. We also needed a report from Vyacheslav Alexandrovich the surveyor, confirming the suitability of the site chosen for the terminal and the progress of preliminary construction. We needed it immediately if the banks were to transfer the money--a hundred and fifty million dollars, I think, or thereabouts--before the end of the year.
The Cossack wanted the cash yesterday, he said he had liabilities to meet with his construction workers and suppliers. The bankers wanted to give it to him, especially because, if they waited until the following year, their bonuses for the closing one would be smaller. But there was a hitch.In the middle of December, Vyacheslav Alexandrovich had finally made it up to the Arctic. Then he disappeared.
In our office we worried that maybe he'd fallen through a hole in the ice or made friends with the wrong lady at the hotel bar. The Cossack said there were no holes in the ice and he was sure everything was normal. He wanted us to come to a meeting at Narodneft's Moscow headquarters, on New Year's Eve, to sign the last documents we had to send to New York and London before the banks released the money. Paolo agreed to go. He said he thought it would be a waste of our time, but we'd be on the clock even so. He took me and Sergei Borisovich with him.
N ARODNEFT IS MORE like a state than a company. Along with its wells and pipelines and tankers, it has hotels and planes and football teams. It owns sanatoriums in the Caucasus and an island in the Caribbean. It runs a submarine in the Gulf of Finland, and, rumour has it, a couple of satellites in space. It operates bespoke brothels and tame assassins. It was at that time said to bankroll half the members of the Russian parliament. It also boasts a weird HQ in southern Moscow that was built in the nineties, during what had evidently been the era of maximum eccentricity in Russian
"That fucking surveyor," Paolo said when I shut the door to his office. Beneath his window the orange men burrowing around in the white expanse of Paveletskaya Square looked like an army of angry ants. "That fucking Cossack."
"Happy New Year, Paolo."
"It is almost finished," he said. "The client is almost happy. Everyone is almost happy. Except for this surveyor. Where is he, Nicholas?"
"I don't know."
"You know, sometimes I wish we never saw the Cossack at all. Why must it be project finance? Why must it be the British Virgin Islands? Always the British Virgin Islands. How are you, by the way?"
8
The truth is that, in those days, even the bankers didn't care all that much whether the banks they worked for got their money back. They earned their bonuses just for shelling it out, and would probably have moved on or upstairs before the Russians or whoever got a chance to default. All the Western banks were desperate to do business in Moscow, because everyone else seemed to be, and most of them weren't too fussed about the destination of their loans. Half the time, when they were lending to one of the huge energy or metals firms, the bankers handed over the cash with no security at all: the Russians were drowning in petrodollars, and anyway the firms' bossesknew they would get even richer in the long run if they observed the niceties--right?
All the same, because the Cossack's project company was new and had no credit history, there were boxes that we had to tick. We'd received the letters from the regional governor, committing him to supporting the project. Narodneft had signed reassuring agreements about how much oil it would pump from its northern fields to the terminal once it was operational, and the export fees it would pay. We had statements of interest from prospective buyers for the oil in Holland and America. The banks had taken out political risk insurance (covering them in case of expropriations or coups). The main contract for the loan was watertight and oil proof.
That wasn't quite enough for the banks to release the first tranche of cash. We also needed a report from Vyacheslav Alexandrovich the surveyor, confirming the suitability of the site chosen for the terminal and the progress of preliminary construction. We needed it immediately if the banks were to transfer the money--a hundred and fifty million dollars, I think, or thereabouts--before the end of the year.
The Cossack wanted the cash yesterday, he said he had liabilities to meet with his construction workers and suppliers. The bankers wanted to give it to him, especially because, if they waited until the following year, their bonuses for the closing one would be smaller. But there was a hitch.In the middle of December, Vyacheslav Alexandrovich had finally made it up to the Arctic. Then he disappeared.
In our office we worried that maybe he'd fallen through a hole in the ice or made friends with the wrong lady at the hotel bar. The Cossack said there were no holes in the ice and he was sure everything was normal. He wanted us to come to a meeting at Narodneft's Moscow headquarters, on New Year's Eve, to sign the last documents we had to send to New York and London before the banks released the money. Paolo agreed to go. He said he thought it would be a waste of our time, but we'd be on the clock even so. He took me and Sergei Borisovich with him.
N ARODNEFT IS MORE like a state than a company. Along with its wells and pipelines and tankers, it has hotels and planes and football teams. It owns sanatoriums in the Caucasus and an island in the Caribbean. It runs a submarine in the Gulf of Finland, and, rumour has it, a couple of satellites in space. It operates bespoke brothels and tame assassins. It was at that time said to bankroll half the members of the Russian parliament. It also boasts a weird HQ in southern Moscow that was built in the nineties, during what had evidently been the era of maximum eccentricity in Russian
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