Chapter 11 - The Deal Did Not Die
Meridian did not walk.
Patricia had spent months describing delay as apocalypse.
It wasn't.
The purchase price changed.
The structure changed.
The buyer demanded an escrow tied to legacy product issues.
The independent Atlas review expanded.
The company disclosed additional information to appropriate regulators and insurers where counsel determined it was required.
Several old patient cases were reopened for internal review.
Not every adverse outcome came from a defective device.
Some did not.
A limited manufacturing problem affecting specific production lots was eventually confirmed.
The company had corrected the underlying process years earlier.
The larger failure had been incomplete investigation and documentation.
That still mattered.
Derek's destruction of the founder file became a separate governance issue.
The board removed him as CEO.
Not because he shoved cake into his wife's face.
That damaged his reputation.
The board action centered on corporate conduct.
Destruction of records.
Conflict in the sale.
Failure to disclose his personal relationship with a blocking shareholder appropriately.
The exact categories mattered.
Patricia called the independent directors cowards.
They voted anyway.
The Meridian transaction eventually closed for approximately $368 million rather than the original headline number.
Still enormous.
Still enough to make every shareholder wealthy.
Including me.
Including Patricia.
Including Derek.
He did not lose everything.
Reality was crueler to his worldview than that.
The company survived after he lost control.
The sale happened after I refused his terms.
His family remained wealthy after Patricia insisted delay would destroy them.
Derek had endangered his marriage, career, and reputation to solve a crisis that negotiation eventually solved better.
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That consequence required no dramatic punishment.
The facts were humiliating enough.
