Chapter 8 - pitching (part 2)

On the hit list after S7ílhen was a range of other of other funds in what the team was euphemistically calling “high potential markets,” or, in other words, places where people were already fat and getting fatter.

It was almost as simple as pulling up Our World in Data and searching countries by obesity rank. Almost. Lipid went a few steps further, however, by looking at jurisdictions and communities which were fat for starters, but then segemented by those with significant pools of capital that were also looking for a community impact and, ideally, where there was a government prerogative to address their obesity “crisis.” In any perception of crisis, May and team saw opportunity.

A perfect fit in that model were the Mexican retirement funds administrators, the Administradoras de Fondos para el Retiro (AFOREs), a group of over twenty private sector funds that managed over two-hundred billion dollars for one of the fattest workforces in the world. Since 2020s Mexico and the US were neck-and neck for the title of the most obese countries in the world and that race was still being hard-fought over a decade later.

The AFOREs representatives weren’t hard to get together and in fact, despite Lipid’s protestations, a team was more than happy to come up to San Francisco to speak in person.

And what a team: fifteen of the twenty funds sent reps, and when they all filed into the luxurious meeting space that the Lipid team had acquired for exactly this purpose, it seemed like each Mexican investor was larger than the last.

The procession started with several beefy dark-skinned men who represented the construction and logistics sectors. They had that curious mixture of fat and muscle of men who have worked hard at some point, but have let their bodies go to pasture as they get older. A smattering of other sectors had reps large and small, most of them on the shorter side, each unintentionally dominated by Nasha as she held the door for them.

The final few representatives to wobble in were by far the largest, the biggest of whom introduced herself as Consuella Maria de la Cruz, chief strategy officer for Mexico’s largest private nurses superannuity. Like many of her colleagues, she had that same cheerful brown skin that glistened in the light (her sweaty forehead and upper lip definitely helped there, but weren’t the only source) and projected a gregarious, welcoming presence.

The defining feature of this woman was far and away her width; despite the fact that the double-doors of the glassed-in boardroom had both been opened, she still carefully navigated her fantastically large derierre at an angle to avoid catching either of her saddlebags on the way in. Her breasts somehow managed to maintain an overall roundness but extended as far as three-feet side to side across what was theoretically her rib-cage. They were held in place with what must have been mithril or another magical material but also had the added advantage of resting atop a slab belly that started out perfectly spherical on top and, like an artist losing interest in a portrait, gradually slumped into a gigantic, uneven hang that brushed her knees with every step. Overall, she was the spitting image of the American fat liberation pioneer, the TV chef Brandy MacIntyre, just with black hair and darker skin - a fact she likely wasn’t ignorant to.

Consuella was the last to lumber into the room and was thankful to see the armless chairs that the Lipid team had custom-ordered on the train back from Vancouver.

The assembled reps took their seats around the large table. While the room had been specifically designed to host a decent number of fat, and even super-fat folks, the AFOREs team represented a step-change in difficulty. Most of them were so wide that their hips still grazed one another wherever they sat, and Consuella was effectively granted her own corner of the table due to her incredible width.

The conversation moved briskly, the fund managers having read up on the Lipid offerings and stated their interest. This wasn’t going to be a conversatio that closed anything, but from the jump, it sounded like it would get pretty damn close.

The Mexican delegation fundamentally appreciated Lipid’s focus on local wealth building and community support. As Mexico had gotten fatter and wealthier -- strangely, the two feeling more and more interrelated over time -- the need for a wide-scale retrofitting of the country’s infrastructure and services to adapt to its obese majority was long-overdue. Nurses, Consquella was quick to point out, were seeing this first hand, both as caregivers and as those in need of assistance. Like the US, Mexican nurses were among the fattest professions out in the workforce.

Just like it had with the other investors, the plan made sense in its unfolding. Initially a few bespoke technologies and treatments to assist with obesity, and then a wider roll-out that focused on creating fat-friendly buildings, infrastructure, and communities. Mexico’s rate of urban development had only scaled up in light of climate change and increased prosperity in the late 2020s, so, before things went too much further, now was the chance to set out a new paradigm that integrated the needs of the obese from the jump, and then work backwards to address existing assets as time went on.

The pitch made sense, the revenue projections and sharing were generous, and, despite some hang-ups on the lack of specificity on the chosen technologies, on day two of the review, the Lipid team started to feel more and more confident.

After four days of intense meetings, expansive because of the sheer number of funders at play, the conversations concluded as they had with the Squamish: we want in.

These meetings concluded with a seemingly endless feast, this time on a rooftop in the Castro district with a notable Mexican-American family that were friends of Bex’s. (They, however, naturally declined the invitation to attend). Consuella and the entire gang ate their way through some home-cooked fare, as well as a few cheeky fusion dishes that were popular with the gringos in SF. Macey would never be sure if it was the third margarita, or if she actually saw May stuff a taco inside of a burrito and eat both in two bites, but regardless, with the team of gluttons at the trough, some truly impressive calories were put away by all.

With the Squamish interested, the AFOREs all but confirmed, the Lipid team turned their attention to the still-fattest group in the United States, African Americans.

The potential investor here stood apart from the pensions and sovereign wealth funds that they’d dealt with to date. While the US Government had never quite figured out how to provide reparations to the ancestors of slaves, under the Warnock administration there was a tremendous amount of effort put into closing the racial wealth gap. One of the mechanisms that helped was the creation of the Black Community Investment Constellation, a network of Black-owned funds that used a generous supply of “leased” T-Bills from the Fed to catalyse local investing in African American communities across the whole US. The system had really founded its feet in the last few years and was poised for its next growth phase, presaging a clear alignment to Lipid.

Every investor required a slightly different approach and the Investment Constellation was no different. Coming from San Francisco gave Lipid some baggage from the jump, even with the team’s strong pedigree. The Constellation was extremely particular about who they invested with and they were clear that anyone who wanted to work with them came to their turf, on their terms.

Lipid was only to happy to oblige and bought three cabins on the Amtrak highspeed Sunset Unlimited route from San Diego to San Antonio, and then the Heartland Flyer to Tulsa, Oklahoma, the once and forever Black Wall Street.

Traveling by train as a fat person provided a few unique advantages over flying: no standing in security lines, access to a personal bathroom, and a half-decent commissary. With May’s titanic belly, any confined space was now becoming a problem, so, she had a cabin where she could sleep, eat, and work for the two-day trip to Tulsa. While she had the space, the steady supply of snacks and meals she required unintentionally turned Macey into her errand-girl for a good deal of their travel time. The restaurant staff came to know her by name by dinner-time on the first day and were cracking jokes and wishing her well by the time she left. May, ever the bottomless stomach’ed workaholic, barely even batted an eye the entire time; simply ingesting food like it was her job and working away diligently while she did.

Tulsa had grown and changed a lot over the years: the second largest city in Oklahoma, as the African American community had collectivized more and more of their wealth creation, and, as remote work and housing prices caused a reshuffling of the American population, Tulsa had exploded. It was now an unabashed capital of Black culture in the US and an emergent financial hub, building on the ashes of the original Black Wall Street.

Not least of the benefits of this renaissance was the food. The culinary scene in the city had exploded, with Bon Appetite calling it the “new capital of American culinary culture” in 2029. From Southern-style barbeque, to innumerable style jerked meats, and every type of fusion in between, the humid August air practically dripped with flavour itself.

As the team left the train for their cab to the hotel, despite a steady stream of food over the trip, May insisted on ordering a “small” menagerie of local delicacies to their hotel room while they prepared for their presentation tomorrow.

(Con't)