Chapter 130: Vanguard Equity Partners

MATTHEW THORNHILL

Like everyone handed a personal letter, Matthew found a corner in their sprawling mansion to read his Mother’s message.

As expected, he was in for an earful of nagging. But it’s been so long that he was willing to even listen to a recording of this.

Matthew was clear about his lapses and incompetence. And there wasn’t a day when he didn’t think about what could’ve happened if they just upped and left before.

But whenever his daughter, Eliana, sensed his self-doubt, she would correct him by forcing him to consider the big picture.

Mom, sometimes I feel like she’s way more mature than I am. Matthew chuckled as he thought about his daughter.

Matthew was just moderately ambitious. He liked success as much as the next person but wasn’t obsessed about it, unlike their father, the Chairman of the Thornhill Group.

Even his brother Alexander wasn’t one to desire many worldly things. In fact, if he could run away, he probably would’ve done so long ago.

And all of this seemed to frustrate the patriarch. It also didn’t help that for a long while, they only had female descendants in the family. And when they managed to get one, he was too timid to follow in anyone’s footsteps.

So, it was his daughter who had to carry the pot. Even when Matthew tried taking the burden away from his daughter, the others would find ways to dump it back.

It was maddening.

But back then, they couldn’t do much because they were in the middle of surviving the Anderson Group’s collapse.

But, like the mature girl that she was, Eliana understood. And not only did she understand, but she even proposed a few things.

As parents who didn’t want anything to harm their children, they were both initially against her suggestions of holding it out while amassing enough power and capital behind everyone’s backs.

This would take a smoke screen. Eliana, at a young age, volunteered for the job.

She made several valid points, particularly one regarding that demonic child, Alexa.

They knew about her deviousness. That child did not just deserve to be punished with some time out. She deserved to be tried as an adult.

Matthew had never seen a child as evil as Alexa. It wasn’t just about being spoiled or pompous; she outright hurt people and animals alike.

The problem was that she was underage and would send anyone who tried to teach her manners to court for child abuse. This was largely thanks to the unwavering support of the patriarch.

When Matthew realized how disadvantaged they were against the combination of these two people, they actually plotted to leave.

But Eliana didn’t want to run away like a fugitive. And so they listened. The child had never been one to demand things, so when she did, Matthew and his wife could do nothing but acquiesce.

And now here they were, with a plan that had been brewing for years.

The aim was to liquidate the Thornhill Group by taking down the holdings company.

As the former heir to the family’s empire, Matthew had insider information that would make this plan easier to execute: The Thornhills were actually leveraged to the hilt, teetering on the edge of collapse if even a single domino fell.

Multiple attempts have been made to revive its various businesses, but none have succeeded because of traditional governance.

Although the Thornhill group symbolized a great history and familial glory, it was a conglomerate stuck in the past. The Chairman didn’t want to change the way the cash cows were being run and kept on assigning the subsidiary companies to ’relatives.’

They were more like Ingrid’s relatives as there weren’t even other Thornhills but them. The issue was that these people were incompetent and greedy, eventually sucking the resources of each subsidiary from either mismanagement or outright stealing.

That was mainly why the company remained rather backward and was only able to maintain its prominence with the help of its sought-after assets.

So, to reach the target, Matthew, along with his wife and child, founded several venture capitalist firms using different vests.

Vanguard Equity Partners rose to the top in a few years thanks to a constant stream of capital and impeccable investment choices.

So what were they doing approving bailouts for the subsidiaries of the Thornhill group?

Why, of course, for the security agreement?

In theory, the plan looked simple, and the terms looked reasonable on paper. And most people with optimistic forecasts would agree to leverage their assets as collateral to amass enough funds for the bailout.

But that was only if they were sure about the profitability of their company.

To ensure absolute success, his wife had been in charge of posing as the established customer.

For years, they have worked with these subsidiaries, practically serving as the main source of revenue.

They let this go on until these companies became complacent and heavily dependent.

Recently, they have been terminating contracts with various companies that they used to partner with, and Ingrid’s relatives have started to feel the weight of each loss.

And now they were just waiting for the first domino to fall.

It was just a 2 billion bailout package that should typically be doable with the Thornhill’s size, but loans like this would require a security, requiring them to use a significant portion of their real estate portfolio as collateral.

That proposal was made at the kind suggestion of one of the planted executives. It was said in passing as if to feed information that would only be remembered when desperate.

And Matthew was just waiting for this moment of desperation.

Especially after seeing Ingrid’s treatment of his daughter.

He was willing to take even that gold plating she had on her teeth.

After years of toiling, they are now the customer, creditor, and overall lifeline. Once they default, they will also be the owner.

It had been so long, and they had suffered far too much to make this anything but satisfying.

The clan’s obsession with the company and their greed would eventually lead to their downfall.

For a moment, he wondered if his mother would overturn in her grave. After all, his father and brother would eventually suffer from the Group’s collapse.

But his mother’s encouragement, as well as nagging (it was really more of this), cemented his decision to go through this process.

They weren’t going to die. But for someone who would prioritize company interests over his grandchild, losing the company would probably be even worse than dying.

"Honey, is everything okay?" Asked Eloisa, who approached to give Matthew a hug.

"Yeah, it’s as we can expect from Mom." Matthew grinned, his heart a bit lighter after making up his mind.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by Aunomay Read