In every life and career, there are a lot of ups and downs. Some time ago, it was necessary for the place I work to obtain what’s called “Mezzanine Financing”. That’s needed when a company is starting a large project, has spent the available funds, and finds that the additional business thereby generated needs more working capital.
Lots of businesses go bankrupt during this process. Jobs and investments disappear like perfume in a desert wind, so mezzanine financing is expensive. The place I work could have been forced out of business without it. So, millions of dollars were borrowed at 15% interest. Owners had to both pledge and relinquish their stocks, property titles, and assets to be physically held by the mezzanine finance provider.
Asset sales were necessary, so excess land, machinery, and buildings were put up for sale. In a down economy, such assets are hard to sell. Requests to various specialists at Programming Headquarters were made. St. Anthony, who’s in charge of the “Things That Need To Be Found Department” received many, many pleas to find buyers for the company’s assets. None appeared.
Then, out of the blue, a call came from a salesman in Michigan who worked for a Brazilian automotive manufacturer. The owner of that company had a personal friend who owned a large retail chain in South America. “If you can make this particular kind of consumer products, we’ll buy them from you.”, he said to his manufacturing friend. So, the Brazilian manufacturer called his U.S. salesman. “See if you can find some plastic injection molds to make such and such.”, he said.
The place I work got a phone call. Part of their capital had been spent buying injection molds to get them out of the U. S. market, and, in a few months, these molds were sold in Brazil for enough money to defray a third of the mezzanine financing the company had taken on.
In tracing this back, to the thoughts that preceded the conversation in Brazil to the telephone calls that could have gone several other places, the Catholics where I work could only say, “Thank you, St. Anthony!”
