The Company Men : Jones characters stock money

Jones characters stock money

Why does the Tommy Lee Jones character "basically need to start" (the new company)
"on his Amex?" He had 250,000 stock shares, no? Didn't he have a ton of money from that? What about severence? Why were they acting like he was in trouble?
I must be missing something obvious. TIA
Marianne

Re: Jones characters stock money

Possibly his wife divorced him (for the affair with the HR woman) and took a big chunk of his net worth.

Re: Jones characters stock money

His stock may not be immediately convertible to cash. He may have been granted Allied stock that is not for sale for X number of years. A clause like that can be present in a merger agreement to help stabilize share worth. That is likely what happened.

"Wisdom begins in Wonder"
-Socrates

Re: Jones characters stock money

Thanks acd. There were a few things in the movie that weren't exactly spelled out! I guess that's OK though.
Marianne

Re: Jones characters stock money

He didn't start the company for money, he started it because he wanted to 'build something again'. He talked about how great it was when GTX first started and how it meant something and then it lost meaning thru it's own success. I guess he wanted to start something that would always be meaningful to him and give him the opportunity to help a lot of people out that needed it (by hiring them). I don't think he needed the money in any case. When the CEO told him his stock is worth 600 million and then asked what his was worth, as if to make him feel guilty too, it's obvious the guy is loaded.

Big gulps huh? Well, cya later

Re: Jones characters stock money

Hi Issapunk,
That's kinda what I was saying with the OP, that the line about starting the company "on his Amex" (which I took to mean on credit) was out of place when he seemed like he should be loaded.
Marianne

Re: Jones characters stock money

Rule 1 is not spend your own cash if you can borrow instead, No doubt McLaren would have used some of his own seed money to get up and running but starting up a an old shipyard would need a black Amex.

Re: Jones characters stock money

..Tommy lee Jones character would have been worth between $20,000,000 & $25,000,000 est, based on the info given in story..Putting it on His Amex was a cliche, a figure of speech..Financing a new enterprise of this nature would have involved major capital expenditure..Outside investment $$$..

Re: Jones characters stock money

Yes, I figured it was a metaphor, what I was asking was wouldn't he have enough money without borrowing or needing anything other than what he had.
Marianne

Re: Jones characters stock money

He probably had a nest egg but my guess, for what's it is worth, ventures like this are shielded from personal losses as they're mostly started with venture capital.

I liked this movie very much because I hated it very much. Let me explain. The movie had, in my opinion, a very humanistic edge to it. It showed the volatility of the job market from the guy who worked in the factory to the guys upstairs pushing pencils, making deals, etc. and no one except perhaps the top brass are 'safe'. I know in the last decade many news have been reported how the rich absolutely destroyed the middle class with their fraudulent dealings and back room deals and in large part this movie touched on it but the main points were that middle working class folks suffer the most and may be we can all benefit from a little modesty and keep our egos in check.

I thought the movie was fantastic at telling such a sad and scary... very scary prospect of what real people face in these tough times. Life isn't all rosy and sheltered but if you can take away from it the underpinnings of being fiscally responsible and may be just think about the rainy days and tough times, we can mitigate the inevitable. Studies say we may go through 10 careers or jobs (don't quote me) before we retire. Every one of them is a scary prospect.

Re: Jones characters stock money

You hit the nail on the head.
Love,
Marianne

Re: Jones characters stock money

Yeah that's that I took it to mean as well - a turn of phrase to mean that he was backing the whole operation. Not that he was literally using his credit cards. He had to be worth a couple of hundred million - They mentioned they were hiring a hundred people, so that would indicate a burdened run-rate $20M per year at least...

Re: Jones characters stock money

What gives the OP the impression that Gene wasn't loaded? Don't you get the impression from the conversation that he had during the party with that one guy that he just wanted something to keep him occupied? He was even willing to start a consulting firm.

Re: Jones characters stock money

He doesn't need to start a new business, but he is conflicted about how things have changed, and he believes it is still possible to build up a new business of manufacturing things from the ground. He feels bad about what went down, basically. And he wants to try and show his old mate and boss that things can still be done old school.

Re: Jones characters stock money

As other people have alluded to, when starting a business you rarely use your own money. It just doesn't work that way. Small entrepreneurial ventures like certain tech start-ups self-finance, it's referred to as "bootstrapping" but a venture like a shipyard really couldn't be bootstrapped by anyone short of Warren Buffett. The risk of personal ruin would be too great. It would require investors.

Re: Jones characters stock money

The Tommy Lee Jones character is the only part of the movie that didn't ring true to me.
People like him do not exist in executive level positions. By definition the people up there ONLY act in the interest of stockholder (themselves being also stockholders very often).
It's Hollywood again being soppily idealistic. Without him the movie would be 9/10, with 7/10.

Re: Jones characters stock money

I did not get the sense that the term "on his Amex" meant that he was going to be financing the company with credit card borrowing and had money problems. Traditionally Amex was like Diners Club in that they made you pay off your balance every month... a charge card, not a credit card. The tax liability of cashing out the stock / options to seed his new business would have been non-sensical. So it made a little more sense for him to be going pay-as-you-go with his cash-on-hand and liquid assets.

The alternate ending from the DVD without the speech "rally" speech in the Glouster shipyard building made much more sense. Even with $25MM in stock you would not likely have enough money to start a shipbuilding company. It made much more sense to end with the idea that he was going to bid on the shipyard... that resolves his inner turmoil ... but leaves open whether or not it ever got off the ground.

The whole idea of Jones's character coming to the rescue for a room full of former workers substantially destroyed the credibility of the film for me in the last 10 minutes with its original ending. If the idea was to show what a strong conscience Gene had, it would have been a more realistic / satisfying ending for him to punch out the CEO in the lobby when they meet after Phil's funeral.

Re: Jones characters stock money

I agree. I felt like the ending sold out everything the movie had been saying to that point. It was crap. Probably a big reason why this film didn't get any release or attention.

Re: Jones characters stock money

Agree absolutely.
I just posted the same sentiment and noticed your posting a minute later. Too bad. Would have been a great movie.

Re: Jones characters stock money

Probably a metaphor. The Jones character likely used his stock in GTX/Allied as collateral to obtain startup financing. It was noted near the end (Wilcox mentions it) that he was "looking for investors". So he was probably thinking of making a private offering to generate additional funds aside from the startup monies. People starting new businesses after cashing out of a previous one often go this route. I was a partner in a small business that essentially went that way. We built it up and after about ten years sold it to an investment group (who kept it going). That was our plan from the beginning. It wasn't like the B&O railroad or anything like that, where we were going to pass it on to our kids. Too specialized for that. The partners agreed it was time to move on to other things, and we did.

Re: Jones characters stock money

I took it as a just a thing Affleck says to indicate that TLJ is footing the bill with his own money.

Re: Jones characters stock money

The secretary mentioned investors, so money would be coming from that area.

Re: Jones characters stock money

It's because when you have that much money tied up in stock in one company, it's not very valuable immediately. If you are even legally allowed to sell it unless qualifications are met or enough time passes, if you start selling off, it's going to kill the price, and your stock won't be worth much. You have to sell it off gradually over time. However, even if you're not very liquid, you won't have a hard time borrowing, because you have enough collateral for banks to go after.
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