At the time, we believed the “other conflicts” line. What did it matter? True, the stock had started to slide, but a lot of other underwriters were knocking on our door trying to displace our current choice. They were also big. They’d get the job done right away. With their backing, IDT stock would gain the few points it had lost and then some. We needed more money desperately, to hedge our bet. We started due diligence with another large firm right away, and this time it was completed in a week. Finally we were going to really make it. We’d get the money we needed. We’d ensure our market position and we’d be really rich. Then, unexpectedly, they also pulled out. Seems the PI report, of which they’d gotten a copy, was bothering them too, or so they said. Now we were in real trouble. And the stock really started to slide.

We pored and pored over that written report. There didn’t seem to be anything bad or unexplainable. Jim brought it to a friend who had run the largest brokerage house on Wall Street.

“Perfectly normal, don’t see any problem,” he said.

Joe Cohen, the chairman of Cowen, also asked to see the report and said we looked fine to him. He’d talk to the heads of the other investment banks and try to determine what the problem was. Why hadn’t we just stayed with Cowen? I thought. That was my mistake. My fat head. My abandonment of old friends. Now I was being punished, but good!

I waited to hear from Joe, but didn’t get a response. Not right away, anyhow. He was always in meetings. He was always waiting to hear back from someone else. He was talking to Maria about it. He was on top of the problem. He wasn’t on the phone, though.

And I was running out of money. And the stock was dropping. And I had nowhere to turn, and no one to talk to, so I talked to everybody.

Everyone I met, from top to bottom, any underwriter we’d ever dealt with, got a call from me. All were encouraging. They all told me what a great company I had. How they were sure we’d be doing business soon. How they were sure everything would be worked out.

How what would be worked out? What? What? What? There was nothing to be worked out. Just get us the money, take your cut, and everything’ll work out just fine. The stock’ll go up, the company won’t go under, the investors will be happy. What’s to be worked out? There was some kind of conspiracy going on around that report. Something someone wasn’t telling us.

I kept calling, trying to cash in old chips, willing to issue new ones. Finally, a low-level due diligence guy at one of the large underwriters gave us our big break. Like Deep Throat of Watergate fame, he gave us the crucial missing clue.