THE CELERITAS FILES

Chapter 7/ 28

Saturday, December 17, 2016

Bliksem Corporate Office, Barakhamba Road, New Delhi, India

Sivakumar was seated in his cabin staring into the screen of his laptop while furiously typing some emails to be sent to Ramamurthy and some other relevant personnel within Groupe Leroy. As he clicked on 'Send' he stared at the screen, recalling the previous Wednesday's events.

It was easily among the best days of his life. The results of the testing laboratory had been out and they were extremely positive. The product sample that they had sent to the laboratory had wonderfully survived all the relevant tests and the report had rated its application as almost flawless and ready-for-use. He had had a discussion with François Leroy and Ramamurthy over a video conference regarding the report where both of them seemed visibly excited about the product and its future within Groupe Leroy. To Sivakumar's surprise, François Leroy had been very expressively happy about the product tests coming out so strongly positive and he had gone on to give an in-principal approval for the deal. That statement itself had made Sivakumar's day. He felt that after dedicating close to twenty-four years of his life to research, he was finally getting some recognition; the recognition that he had always deserved. Mentally, he had decided that he would host a big party for the team once they signed the documents and closed the deal.

Ramamurthy had gone on to give a more detailed explanation of the due diligence and valuation procedures after Leroy made his big announcement. He had explained that Leroy was going to appoint three different consultancy firms to carry out the legal, financial and technical due diligence of Bliksem respectively. Consultants from each of these firms would regularly be getting in touch with Sivakumar and his team and would also be visiting his office for the sake of perusing various legal, financial and technical documents to make sure that everything within the company is in order and that Bliksem does not have any skeletons in its cupboard. Also, there would be another financial advisory firm specializing in company valuations, appointed by Leroy, that would be getting in touch with him so that it could propose the amount that Bliksem India was worth and the amount of funding that Leroy could infuse for its sixty percent shareholding. After the call, Sivakumar had an extremely clear picture on the next steps of the transaction.

Suddenly, there was a knock on his door. It was Rashmi, the Human Resource Manager.

"Sir, Mr. Amaan Sayyed is here for the interview for the Senior Finance Manager role," she said, "He is in the conference room."

"Okay thanks, Rashmi," he replied without looking up from his screen, "Can you please call Shaina to my cabin?"

Rashmi nodded and left hurriedly. Within the next couple of minutes, there was a knock on his door and Shaina entered, with a big smile on her face.

"Good morning, Sir," she said, sounding a bit too happy, as she seated herself on the chair opposite him.

"Good morning, Shaina," Sivakumar replied finally looking up from the screen of his laptop. "You seem quite excited. What's the matter?"

"We were just discussing the future of Bliksem after the deal with Leroy," she replied, "Just the thought of being associated with a global giant like Leroy and having them finance our future research in this field had all of us really excited. It feels like a dream."

"I am glad that they are so happy about it," Sivakumar said with a smile.

"Happy is such an understatement," Shaina said joyfully, "They are already dreaming of working with all the advanced equipment and the finest electronic research brains in France. And of course, all the recognition that we are going to get once the product is launched sounds like a dream for any researcher. For the first time, we are all feeling the true sense of accomplishment"