The luxurious study was thick with the pungent smell of smoke and the fumes of alcohol. The odors mixed together, creating an unbearable stench.
The Chairman of the Board of Federal Savings Bank sat on the sofa, his back no longer as straight as it had once been.
He was slightly hunched over, seeming to have lost all his radiance as he slumped into the sofa.
The cigarette between his fingers had burned nearly halfway down, yet he had not taken a single puff. A great deal of ash had accumulated, and the slightest movement might send it tumbling down.
He actually no longer wanted to smoke. His lungs were sounding the alarm, and his brain had begun rejecting further nicotine because of the excessive amount already in his system.
Yet he had to light a cigarette. Even if he only took one puff at the beginning and another just before it burned out, lighting it, holding it between his fingers, could make him feel extremely "satisfied."
"Some people still disagree with the Board of Directors' decision. I selected a few influential figures from among them..."
A director placed a list on the coffee table and pushed it over.
The Chairman of the Board picked up the list and glanced at it. Several major shareholders and some ordinary shareholders were among the names.
When they said major shareholders, they actually meant those holding one ten-thousandth, three ten-thousandths, or five ten-thousandths of the shares.
That sounded like very little. Becoming a major shareholder with such a small stake was...incredible. Could such a tiny holding really qualify someone as a major shareholder?
But considering that Federal Savings Bank had tens of thousands of shareholders, the number of shares these people held was actually above average—far above it, even!
Even the Chairman of