Strategy and Risk Management

10

Epilogue

“Risk is a part of God’s game, alike for men and nations.” Warren Buffett

Justin

He did his best to repair the hurt feelings between Paul and himself, but their different leadership philosophies towards risk became a sticking point. There was too much water under the bridge, and soon he and Paul jointly realised that they could no longer work as equal partners.

It took many meetings and lots of creative financing for them to agree to a reasonable “divorce.” The risk they could not afford was to break up the company, so with that intent they were able to come up with a plan to make the company’s continuity the priority. PJ Investments (PJI) spun off most of its land and buildings holdings to Justin’s new company, and he received cash in exchange for his shares. His ownership dropped from 50% down to 15%, a position he believes will allow him to support as needed, yet not interfere with, Paul’s dreams. Justin asked several employees who had been with him for years and preferred his more moderate approach to risk taking to work for his new company, and all of them agreed. We assisted with the implementation of enterprise risk management (ERM) in his new company.

It is somewhat ironic that Justin is now Paul’s landlord.

Paul

Paul’s pursuit of ever-larger risks worked for him but not for Justin. Paul prefers to manage the portfolio of companies they have invested in and was happy that Justin took over the land and buildings, which he always considered a royal pain.

Paul ...