Atrophy of Love: Mr. Harris, Stop Fooling Around! novel Chapter 306

“Wait, isn’t it Thursday today?” Thomas asked in surprise.

The receptionist eyed him and Sophia thoughtfully before replying, “It’s Wednesday.”

“Oh dang it, I messed up the dates!” Thomas slapped his head lightly as guilt crept upon his face. “I have been too busy recently! How did I mess up such an important matter!”

The receptionist kept quiet as she gave them a small smile. Then, she turned to leave.

“Excuse me, wait a minute! Do you mind helping us set up an appointment with Mr. Stewart today? We don’t need much time, just give us five to ten minutes so we can speak to Mr. Stewart.”

The receptionist paused in her tracks and replied, “I’m sorry, but Mr. Stewart’s schedule has already been arranged in advance.”

“Alright then, thank you.” Sophia returned a polite smile.

“You’re welcome.” With that, the receptionist returned to her seat. Though, she continued glancing in their direction as if suspecting that the two of them would steal a chance to slip into the elevator.

Thomas frowned and turned to Sophia. “I’ve already tried calling Mr. Stewart when Ms. Leadman gave me this task, but his assistant told me that his schedule is already full for this entire month. The earliest appointment we can make is a month later.”

“How would you usually deal with this when encountering such a situation?” Sophia asked.

“The easiest and most effective way is to file a lawsuit. When it comes to penalties or interest, normally a company that has money would concede. If the company doesn’t have money, we can also request the court to auction the opponent company’s assets for payment.”

“Though, we can’t use that against Jones Group. Their team of lawyers is as good as ours. Besides, they could care less about the penalty for breach of contract and the high interest rate. They would rather go to court with us and pay a small penalty. We still won’t get our 162 million right away.”

Sophia had never worked in a company before, so she did not know the ins and outs of the workings. “If they have the money, why would they rather pay more for the penalty and interest than make the payment itself? Aren’t they spending more money this way?”

“There’s a time cost for a company’s capital…” Remembering that she did not know the basics, Thomas tried to explain it in a different way. “No matter how big a company is, their liquidity is budgeted beforehand in order to reduce time costs. Every stroke is calculated, and the excess funds can be chosen to be put into stocks, national debt, or other forms of financial management for the company…”

Sophia understood the front part, but the more she listened, the more confused she got. She had no clue as to what he was talking about. It was like listening to him reading out hieroglyphics.

She understood the words separately but when they strung along into sentences, she lost its meaning.

“To put it simply, there’s a limit to a company’s liquidity. With White Industries asking Jones Group for 162 million now, they’re putting the payment on hold because they want to stop us from snatching this project from them.

“The breach of contract penalty and interest is nothing compared to the profits this project will bring in,” Thomas said.

This, Sophia understood. “So basically, it’s like I’m trying to get into the city for an exam but someone stole my travel budget, so I can’t show up for the exam to increase the chances of him coming up top in the exam, is that it?”

“...” Thomas was speechless. “I guess you can put it that way. Our finance department made a financial budget before this to ensure a good flow in our financial supply chain but now that Jones Group has suddenly pulled such a move, we have a little problem in our financial supply chain.”

Financial supply chain… Sophia frowned and asked, “So will White Industries suffer a huge loss from this?”

Whether a company was big or small, a discrepancy in one’s financial supply chain was an incredibly serious issue. A company that originally had a bright future might risk its financial supply chain collapsing and bankruptcy due to a funding problem of tens of millions.

“... These are all not much to White Industries.” Thomas was about to continue before he paused for a minute. He could no longer hold it in and finally said, “Ms… Sophia, I think you should read more about this when you get back.”