Tony James

There are many times when I'd say, Charlie, I'm starting to worry about this other thing.

And he was an absolute rock.

So, I mean, I love the guy, honestly, I have a bust, a bust of him in my conference room, my office, a real mentor, uh, so loyal, so supportive.

And, um,

And very, very high principles.

There was no cutting corners on anything.

Totally.

And he was still coming to board meetings at like 98 years old.

Yeah.

I think our first serious engagement dates back to 1989.

I think it is when we were working on a deal together to buy a railroad company called CNW.

Yeah.

And it was a hairy time because the markets were falling apart.

We were sort of pregnant with this public bid for this railroad company.

We were an equity shareholder, but we were also providing all the high-yield debt and the M&A and on and on and on and on.

Part of our business model, put a little equity in and get all the rest of the banking business.

And we had a big high-yield deal which had a reset note.

And

Steve was balking at the concept of a reset.

No, I think we're pricing at 15% and it could reset up to 18%.