Sycamore Row - John Grisham

good hurricane season, lots of damage, lots of demand for plywood and lumber. He
borrowed against the mill and bought a furniture factory near Albany, Georgia. The
place made these oversized rocking chairs you see on the front porches of Griddle
restaurants, coast-to-coast. Seth negotiated a contract with the chain and overnight they
couldn’t make the rocking chairs fast enough. He pledged the stock, borrowed some
more, and bought another furniture factory near Troy, Alabama. About that time he
found a banker in Birmingham who was trying to grow his small bank into something
much bigger, and he was aggressive. He and Seth were on the same page, and the deals
came one after the other. More factories, more lumber mills, more timber leases. Seth
had a nose for sniffing out businesses that were undervalued or in trouble, and his
banker rarely said no. I warned him against so much debt, but he was too reckless to
listen. He had something to prove. He bought an airplane, kept it in Tupelo so no one
around here would know, and stayed in the air.”
“Does this have a happy ending?”
“Oh yes. Over the past ten years or so, Seth bought about three dozen companies,
primarily furniture plants in the South, some of which he moved to Mexico, but also
lumber yards and sawmills, along with thousands of acres of timber. All with borrowed
money. I mentioned the one banker in Birmingham, but there were others. The bigger
he got the easier it became to borrow more. As I said, it was at times frightening, but the
guy never got burned. He didn’t sell a single thing he bought, just held on, looking for
the next deal. Deals and debts were like an addiction to Seth. Some men gamble, some
drink, some chase women. Seth loved the smell of somebody else’s money as he bought
another company. He also liked women.
“Then, sadly, he got sick. It was about a year ago when the doctors told him he had
lung cancer. He was ripping along at full speed until he went to the doctor. They told
him he had a year, max. Needless to say, he was devastated. Without consulting anyone,
he decided to sell out. A few years ago, we found the Rush law firm in Tupelo, and Seth
finally had some guys he could trust. He hated lawyers and fired them as fast as he hired
them. But the Rush firm convinced him to consolidate everything into one holding
company. Last November, he sold the holding company to a leveraged buyout group in
Atlanta for $55 million. He happily repaid his debts, to the tune of $35 million.”
“He netted twenty?”
“He netted twenty, give or take. There were a few other loose ends, including me. I
had some stock in the holding company and so I walked away in good shape. I retired at
the end of last year. I don’t know what Seth has done with the money since then,
probably buried it in the backyard. Plus, he accumulated other assets that he kept out of
the holding company. There’s a cabin in the mountains of North Carolina, and quite a
few other assets. There’s probably an offshore bank account or two.”
“Probably?”
“I can’t say for certain, Mr. Brigance. Just things I’ve heard over the years. As I said,
Seth Hubbard loved his secrets.”
“Well, Mr. Amburgh, you as his executor and I as his lawyer have the job of tracking
down all assets.”