Chapter 43: Financial Bubble

Dante had been the leader of the Cleaners before he became the boss, but now that he was heading the entire family, there was no way he would be able to take care of everything that the Cleaners needed him to! This meant that Dante had to give the position out to someone else! And the only person Dante could see leading the Cleaners in his place was Philip! Philip was smart and a good leader who had a good relationship with the other members of the cleaners, and Dante could tell that he was loyal to both Dante and to the family! This gave Dante the confidence to leave everything in Philip’s hands! Dante had called on the Hydra to meet with him since he needed to give them all their duties for the upcoming war, and he was about to head out with Philip for the meeting, but a voice suddenly called from the side, and he turned to see Florence, the secretary, coming toward him.

“Mr. Lucas! Please wait!”

Risa immediately put her hand out and prevented Florence from getting too close to Dante, and Dante raised a brow when he saw Florence leaning down with her hand on her knees while taking deep breaths! It was obvious that she had been sprinting to catch up to him, and she looked like an absolute mess! Her hair was dishevelled, and there were dark circles around her eyes that showed she was not getting enough sleep! Philip asked Dante if he should get rid of her, but Dante just raised his hand to tell him to relax. Dante asked Florence what she was doing there, and Florence raised the paper in her hand toward him.

“Please! Please, let’s talk about the accounts! You were right!”

Dante’s eyes narrowed immediately he heard this, and he turned and told Philip that he could go ahead to prepare things for the meeting. Dante would meet him in the meeting room when he was done speaking to Florence. Philip was shocked to see the seriousness in Dante’s eyes, but he knew better than to question the boss in front of so many people, so he just nodded and went to do as he was told! Once Philip left, Dante told Florence to come with him, and he led her towards the main office in the mansion with Risa following behind them. The office that they entered was a large room with mahogany floors and a large library on one side of the room. There was a chandelier hanging from the dark ceiling, and a large presidential table was positioned in the center of the room beside a window that overlooked the grazing field behind the mansion. Dante told Florence to sit on the couch opposite him as he went to take a seat, and Risa stood beside Dante respectfully before Dante asked Florence to tell him what was wrong. Florence eyed Risa for a second, and Dante could tell that she was a little skeptical about saying anything with Risa in the room, but Dante waved away her concern and commanded her to speak. If there was anyone that Dante wouldn’t mind knowing about his personal business, then it was Risa.

Florence immediately started talking.

“I—I went through the books just like you asked me to, sir. I… I don’t even know how to explain this. It’s a mess! Such a big mess! There are payment logs dating back more than ten years that have never been registered in the company books! Hundreds of millions of dollars were siphoned out from the main company and into the illegal business for purchases that we never even recorded! It’s like someone took a massive knife and cut our revenue in half with it! On paper, we are still worth two hundred billion, but with all these debts and expenses, we’re lucky that we still even have a hundred billion! It’s an absolute mess!”

Florence looked like she was about to have a fucking aneurysm! She was breathing heavily, and her hair was scattered from how much she was running her hand through it! Normally, Florence was always calm and collected, but after she went home with the books last night, she had put everything else to the side, and she began looking through all of it to try and see what Dante was trying to tell her! Florence didn’t understand the illegal side of the Lucas family, but she knew that there were a lot of expenses that George would normally take money from the legal side to cover on the illegal side and vice-versa, but Florence always covered those expenses in their logbook, and the amount of money that we were getting from the illegal side of the business was always enough to cover those expenses! But she was shocked when she discovered that George had been lying to her!

The expenses that Florence had been logging were barely fifty percent of what they were really spending! For some reason, George had spent hundreds of millions in only a few years, and he used it for something that no one could figure out! The receipts for expenses were in the books, but they had no idea what George spent all that money on! But that wasn’t what made Florence lose her mind so quickly! Instead, what made her almost go mad was the fact that the entire company could suffer from this one mistake George had made! If they didn’t find a way to rectify this as quickly as possible, then the company could lose billions!

Dante looked over the papers that Florence had given him with narrowed eyes, and he could feel his [Financial Expertise] skill kicking into overdrive so he would understand all of it. There were a lot of business-related terms and hundreds of numbers and calculations throughout the paper, but Dante was able to pick out the most important things quickly enough, and he huffed silently before he sent a question to the system.

’Do you know anything about this? What did my father use so much money for?’

[The system does not possess any knowledge of Geroge Lucas’s personal dealings. the user will have to figure this out on his own.]

Dante clicked his tongue at this reply before he turned to give Florence a look and asked.

“I want your unbiased opinion right now. Tell it to me straight: if we don’t fix this, then how long do we have before the bubble bursts?”

The bubble that Dante was talking about was the financial bubble that Lucas Corp had created for itself with their false accounting. But reporting that they had more money than they actually did, Lucas Corp managed to stay as one of the largest companies in the world, and their stocks were still selling for very high amounts, but the moment the truth came out, that bubble would burst!

Dante didn’t even need to ask if the bubble was going to burst or not! The situation that they were in right now was very similar to the situation that many American companies had been in during the dot-com boom in 1999. Back then, those companies sold their stocks for very high prices because the public all believed that the companies were worth that much, but after the truth was exposed, the public realized these companies shouldn’t be selling their stocks for so high, and they all began to remove their money from the stock exchange to try and preserve their wealth! This led to the entire company taking a financial nosedive, and they became broke in almost no time at all! Dante knew that if they didn’t do something, then Lucas Corp was going to go through the exact same crisis! And now the only thing he needed to know was how long he had before something like this happened!

Florence put her hands on her face and rubbed her eyes tiredly as she tried to think of an answer! She made a lot of calculations in her mind, and she was able to come up with a precise date in almost no time! Finally, she spoke.

“Six months. I predict that the bubble should burst in exactly six months. There’ll be an audit of the company in about three months, and we should be able to skate through without any issues, but the Financial Bureau is going to carry out a deeper audit in six months, and it’ll be impossible for us to get through that one without them finding out. If the news about this gets out to the public, then the company will sink.”

Dante ran a hand through his hair and sighed calmly. This was not what Dante had been hoping to deal with today.

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