Offer To The CEO

Sunday, continued …

Having received Hou Yi's telephone call which gave him vague information CEO Yang knew that when it came to serious business matters, he would not mess him around. He therefore started to contact the various members of Lu Corporation's board advising them of the vague information he had been provided about the charge's Lu Jingho was facing and the potential implication of Lu Corporation.

While being stunned at the information, knowing it came from Hou Yi, who when it came to business matters had the reputation of not passing on false information, they agreed that an urgent board meeting was required. They agreed to meet at 11am at the Yang Group, rather than Lu Corporation for preliminary discussions and to watch the press conference before finalising their response on behalf of Lu Corporation. As he made each of them realise using Yang Group for the meeting would lessen the potential for harassment if the information that came out was bad for the company.

Members of the Lu Corporation board started arriving at Yang Group headquarters at 10:45am, and were all shown up to the board room, where brunch was awaiting them. Right on 11am, the final members of the Lu family arrived, disgusted at the fact that they Sunday had been disturbed.

CEO Yang, once everyone was in spoke "Gentleman, in the absence of the chairman, given I had called this urgent meeting of the board of Lu Corporation to order. My personal sectorial staff will record the minutes of this meeting, and that along with the audio recordings will be provided to each of you and directly to the Lu Corporation staff."

"While every one of us have reason to distrust CEO Hou of Hou Corporation, we have to take his information as the truth, particularly as we know his reputation in business not to pass on false information. There has been an announcement that a police press conference will be held, commencing at noon regarding a raid on illegal brothels conducted in Lu Corporation owned warehouses. Personally, from sources at the police station I have only been able to verify the fact that Lu Jingho is being charged with approximately ninety offences and that there are indications that the company will be implicated in his offending."

"How in the world could the company be involved?" came one voice.

"Gentleman, your guess is as good as mine. The problem is that he is likely to have committed the offences while the CEO of Lu Corporation. The problem is that even without involvements his role as CEO will draw the company into matter. That is even though we are in the process of appointing an interim CEO in accordance with the company charter. Plus, I understand that CEO and Madam Hou sold thirty of the forty percent of company shares they owned on Friday, ten percent in private sales and the balance on the open market."

"Damn, they had advanced warning of this."

"I would be surprised if they did, and to be realistic they got the shares they did simply as they wanted to deal with Lu Jinhgo. Let us not speculate about that. We have to work out what we are doing."

The board members for Lu Corporation continued to debate who knew what, until their attention was drawn to the television and the police press conference.

Forty-five minutes later, after the police had finished laying out information as to the charges that Lu Jingho was facing, there was stunned silence in the room. One of the Yang Group secretaries, when the press started asking questions, turned the television off and asking each of the board members what they wanted to drink for the purposes of breaking the silence in the room.

Once they had drinks, CEO Yang spoke up "Gentleman, that was almost the worst thing for Lu Corporation. The question becomes what we do? My personal view is that we have to distance the company from Lu Jingho and immediately investigate his activities and even the private companies that he was left by his father and grandfather left him and how they are connected to Lu Corporation and the activities that he is being charged with. We have to get on the front foot with this, otherwise the company will never recover from this."

After a fifteen-minute debate, the conclusion reached was that they would adjourn back to Lu Corporation and start pulling in resources to start their investigations to protect the company. Further there would be a press conference arranged to announce Lu Jingho had been removed from his role as CEO previously in accordance with the company charter but as at the time no shares were being actively traded it had not been announced.

The pre-text of the sales late on Friday which were confirmed just on the close of business could be used as the pre-text for the statement only being made now, given previously all shareholders knew the fact. There also would have to be statements made that Lu Corporation would cooperate with the police as any actions that implicated the company were done without the knowledge of anyone but the CEO.

Eventually the press conference was able to be held at 4:30pm, which ensured that it was in time for the evening news, and no Lu Family Members felt guilty of throwing Lu Jinhgo to the wolves as in the end for them the protection of Lu Corporation and the money it provided them was more important that family protection.