Chapter 4 - Victor Had Built a Succession Plan Around a Grandson
Victor Bennett did not simply want a grandson because he was old-fashioned.
He had constructed financial consequences around one.
Years earlier, Victor placed controlling shares of Bennett Logistics into a private family trust.
He retained voting control during his lifetime.
After his death, the structure divided differently depending on whether Julian had a direct male descendant before Victor turned sixty-five.
The clause was archaic.
Possibly challengeable.
But real.
Victor’s own father had written it decades earlier.
If Julian had a biological son, a large block of nonvoting economic shares would be earmarked for that child’s branch.
If no son existed by the deadline, part of that economic interest shifted to Victor’s late brother’s descendants.
Victor hated those relatives.
He had spent twenty years fighting them in boardrooms.
He viewed a grandson as protection against losing family wealth to a branch he despised.
The deadline?
Victor’s sixty-fifth birthday.
Eighteen months away.
A granddaughter did not satisfy the old clause as written.
That explained the obsession.
But not the fraud.
Because Sofia could simply have another child later.
Unless Julian and Victor knew something else.
May you like
They did.
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