Page 520 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
sum up the heart of the business. Mr. Dansker stood up and greeted me very cordially. He was man of about sixty-five years of age who stood about five-eleven in what I was to learn was his unchanging uniform: a gray three-piece suit of a very conservative cut and a proper tie. He started off by telling me that he was familiar with my reputation and experience, and that, based upon what he had heard, I looked like a good fit for his organization. So the conversation was essentially one where it appeared that he was selling me (or so it seemed, but, as I got to know him, I learned that he was incredibly shrewd and observant, so there is no doubt that he was the principal assessor during our give and take).
He certainly charmed me. His tone was as welcoming as any that I’d ever heard from a hardened businessman, which he clearly was, and he was a great salesman. He couldn’t have committed the crime in Fort Lee.
Coronet, he told me, was about to enter a new era. Via Coronet Properties Company, the umbrella real estate organization, it had acquired and converted many properties (including, of all things, Le Havre!) and would acquire and convert more. The market was booming and would continue to do so. That meant that Coronet would be con- stantly buying, converting, and selling and, as it turned out, managing, financing, and refinancing units that had not yet been sold. Having just completed the conversion process at Le Havre, Coronet was starting that process with the biggest of its properties (a cluster of buildings consisting of more than two thousand units, overlooking the Hudson in Riverdale and known as “Sky View”) and was, at the same time, launch- ing Coronet Capital Company.
Coronet Capital would be seeded by money of his and the money that he would be raising from outside investors. It would negotiate lines of credit from three banks with which he had excellent relationships and would be in the business of assessing and financing real estate proj- ects of outside borrowers. He was also interested in acquiring banks and, perhaps, going public.
Accordingly, Norman felt that he was in need of an “attorney of stature” who could understand and manage the multiplicity of transac- tions to come; negotiate and deal with the investors, the borrowers, the
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