Going Public
Going Public
It’s November and it’s cold in New York City, which gives Ruth an excuse to wear the fur coat Elliot bought her for her forty-sixth birthday last year. She and Elliot flew into town with Henry Pursell, Mattel’s general counsel. In addition to overseeing the never-ending lawsuit with Louis Marx, he’s helping them take Mattel public, putting them on the New York Stock Exchange. Henry’s there with Ruth and Elliot for a meeting with a group of underwriters representing some of Wall Street’s biggest investment banks. The whole thing is so heady. Who would have ever guessed all those years ago, when Elliot and Matt were working out of the garage and Ruth was hawking their wares, that they were building a company that would one day go public? Ruth still can’t get over it, and God, how she wishes Sarah were alive to see this.
Their meeting is at the Harrington, one of those stately, dark-paneled old-money clubs that smell of aftershave, along with pipe and cigar smoke. Chilled to the bone, Ruth rubs her gloved hands together as the three of them enter the foyer, the clacking of cue balls coming from the billiards room off to the side. Everywhere Ruth looks she sees tuxedoed men eyeing her askance, as if she’s done something wrong.
And apparently she has. An older man with a few gray hairs streaked across his pink pate comes rushing up. “Ah, excuse me? May I help you?”
“We’re from Mattel,” says Elliot. “We have a meeting with Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and—”
“Oh, of course, of course. Mr.Handler. Mr.Pursell, I presume.” He smiles, bows. “Welcome. We’ve been expecting you.”
Ruth looks at Elliot and Henry and cocks an eyebrow as if to say, What am I, chopped liver?
“The other gentlemen are already here, upstairs.” The bald man snaps his fingers, and a younger tuxedoed man appears at his side. “Please show Mr.Handler and Mr.Pursell to the Franklin Room.” He smiles and gestures toward a bank of elevators.
As Ruth starts to follow them, the older man places his hand on her shoulder. “Ah, excuse me, miss—I’m afraid this is a gentlemen’s club.” He tilts his head and smiles as if the rest is implied.
She smiles back. “Well, then, if this is a gentlemen’s club, I suggest you behave like one and take your goddamn hands off me.” She brushes him aside and keeps going.
The older man leaps in front of her. “I’m—I’m very sorry, madam,” he stammers, “but we do not allow women here inside the Harrington.”
Elliot and Henry backtrack to her side.
“My apologies, Mr.Pursell, Mr.Handler. But those are the club rules.”
She laughs. “Well, you’re gonna have to bend your rules, buddy. I have a meeting to get to.”
“This meeting can’t take place without her,” says Elliot.
The man is unsettled, thinking. “Very well, then,” he says eventually, turning to his lackey. “Timothy will take you gentlemen to the Franklin Room and I’ll see to it that the young lady joins you in there as well.”
Young lady? Ruth rolls her eyes. “Go on”—she motions to Elliot and Henry—“I’ll meet you up there.”
“Now, if you’ll follow me,” says the older man. “I believe you’ll be more comfortable coming this way.”
Ruth laughs. “What are you gonna do, take me up the service elevator?” The man’s face turns as pink as his scalp. “I was joking,” she says.
“Well, we could take the stairs, but—”
“The service elevator it is.” She’s not willing to give him the benefit of seeing her humiliated. She squares her shoulders and follows him back through the kitchen and down a long bare hallway. They step into the service elevator, and she stares the older man down. By the time they reach the Franklin Room she sees pinpricks of sweat sprouting on his brow. Good.
Elliot and Henry are seated around a shiny conference room table along with representatives from Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Chemical Bank and Chase Manhattan Bank. It’s clear when she enters the room that the bankers regard her as Elliot’s wife, assuming she’s tagged along to New York for the shopping and theater. Ruth makes her way around the table, firmly shaking one suit’s hand after another before settling into the empty chair next to Elliot’s.
“Ah, Mrs.Handler,” says the man from Goldman Sachs, “we’ll get you another chair. That seat is actually for Mattel’s head of finance.”
“Good,” she says, “because I am Mattel’s head of finance.”
She’s flustered him, and the others, too. It’s so easy to knock them off their game. If only she’d known how to deal with men like this in her twenties and thirties. When she was younger, she played a room like this differently. Following her sister’s advice about balancing her toughness with a feminine ruffle, she came into business meetings armed in a low-cut dress, high heels, red lipstick and an extra dab of perfume. But now she’s found her own balance; she’s still feminine, but she’s not about to give another man a cheap shot down her blouse or strategically cross her legs. She’s earned her place at the table—this is her goddamn company they’re discussing—and she can hold her own, on her own terms.
One of the bankers begins passing out packets in neat folders that have been meticulously prepared. They’re still directing the conversation toward Elliot and Henry when they discuss the size of the float—how many shares would be newly issued by Mattel and how many shares would be sold by Elliot and other insiders.
Ruth listens, and when they’re done speaking, she takes over. “And now, gentlemen,” she says, “I have a few questions for you.” In rapid fire, she asks: “What’s the underwriting fee? What do you propose for the road show? What’s your time frame? How many cities are we talking about? When can I expect to see the order book? And lastly, gentlemen, what will the price range be on the offering?”
By the end of the meeting, no one has any doubt as to who’s in charge. When they emerge from the Franklin Room, she boldly steps into the elevator with the men. No one says a word, not even the elevator operator, whose skin goes ashen.
They step into the lobby and the quiet is unsettling, especially since it’s full of men gathered around a television set, their heads hung low, a few of them openly sobbing—so engulfed with despair, they don’t notice the woman in their midst.
Ruth turns to Elliot and Henry. “What’s going on? Did somebody die or something?”
One of the men overhears her and says, “Yes. It’s the president. President Kennedy is dead.”