Hollywood: Playboy Empire

"You are a goddamn thief!"

In Holmby Hills, inside the sprawling Gothic Tudor Playboy Mansion, an old man in a red velvet robe roared, his dark eyes bulging with fury.

The old man was Hugh Hefner: eighty years old, gaunt now, though traces of the handsome man he had once been still showed through. He was famous for claims that he had slept with more than two thousand women, but one title mattered more: founder of Playboy magazine.

More than half a century earlier, with scissors and glue on his own kitchen table, Hefner had spent a week putting together the first issue by hand. Over the next half century, that men's magazine had grown into a brand that could stand beside Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and Disney as one of the symbols of American culture.

Then, over the Christmas season just past, the company's public image collapsed.

"I came here to do business. That's all."

Across from him, the young man studied the mansion's lavish interior with idle curiosity. Only then did he turn his head, unhurried, and answer in a tone light enough to sound almost bored.

He was young. Hefner was old enough to be his grandfather.

His name was Julian Moretti.

"If you reject the buyout, I can walk away right now," Julian said. His gaze moved over Hugh Hefner and all four of his children, a trace of mockery in his voice. "But the next knock at the door may be the LAPD."

He tilted his head, deliberately listening.

"Hear the crowd outside?"

"Arrest Hefner!"

Outside the mansion, protesters packed the grounds. Most of them were women, holding signs that read PUNISH THE PREDATORS and ARREST THE MONSTER HEFNER. Beyond the crowd, broadcast vans from half the media companies in Los Angeles lined the street.

By late last year, former Playmates were appearing on news programs one after another, publicly accusing Hugh Hefner of criminal behavior and describing the "hell" they said they had endured during their early years around Playboy, both inside this mansion and at the company's offices. Entertainment reporters across the country spent Christmas working overtime as scandal after scandal dragged the company into a public-relations crisis and sent its stock below two dollars a share.

When the holiday ended, people took to the streets. They surrounded the company's Chicago headquarters and his private residence in Los Angeles, demanding that prosecutors arrest him.

Julian glanced at Saul, the lawyer beside him.

Saul took the cue and read the buyout terms aloud.

"Julian Moretti, through a Cayman Islands investment company, will launch a tender offer for the media group's publicly held shares at a price capped at $2.50 per share. Separately, he will pay $130 million for the Hefner family's voting and equity interests. Depending on the final tender price and participation, the transaction is expected to total roughly $200 million."

The four Hefner children went rigid.

"That is nowhere near the price we originally discussed!" Christie Hefner snapped.

She had served as chairman and CEO since 1988, after her father stepped back from day-to-day management. By 2007, the magazine's long decline had left circulation below three million.

"The offer is based on the share price, and it already includes a premium," Julian said with a smile. "The choice is yours. You can reject the offer at any time. But for every day you delay, the final price falls a little further."

He paused.

"I know it's hard to accept. But this is what you're worth now."

"You son of a..."

Hefner's eldest son clenched his fists.

Julian's words were a match tossed onto dry grass. The Hefner family erupted. To them, this young man was nothing but a corporate raider, seizing control of the company through strong-arm tactics.

"I'll kill this bastard!" one of Hefner's sons shouted, his usual mild demeanor gone. If his older sister had not held him back, he might have rushed across the room.

"Enough."

The old man's voice cut through the room and brought the shouting match to a stop.

"Young man," he said, "tell me who is standing behind you. Bob Guccione? Murdoch? The Cox family?"

Age had spared his voice. Even now, it carried that familiar warm baritone.

"I told you," Julian said. "I'm just a private businessman."

For a moment, his thoughts drifted.

The life Julian inherited began in an orphanage. A married couple adopted him at six. Their marriage collapsed when he was thirteen. After the divorce, he stayed with his adoptive father in Utah. He studied finance at the University of Pennsylvania, but instead of following most of his classmates to Wall Street, he returned home and founded a mortgage lender called Haven Home Financial.

By originating subprime mortgages, selling the loans into securitizations, and taking on as much leverage as the market would bear, Haven Home expanded at a terrifying pace. By the previous year, it had established a foothold in five Midwestern states, and its mortgage volume had climbed into the top 100 nationwide.

The original Julian was a bold finance prodigy, and a terribly unlucky one. Before he could enjoy more than a few good years, his heart gave out.

Then someone from another timeline woke up in Julian's body.

At first, he considered the easy way out: sell the company, retire young, and live off the proceeds. The problem was that he knew what would happen a few months later. Once New Century Financial filed for bankruptcy, the financial crisis would spread across the world.

Haven Home Financial was doing the same business as New Century. Subprime loans made up ninety percent of its book. The company would be bankrupt before the crisis fully erupted, and Julian would be left with nothing.

Staying still meant death. Moving gave him a chance.

So he played a shell game. He sold the company he had inherited and looked for his next target.

Playboy.

It was an entertainment group built around a magazine, a brand that had featured icons such as Marilyn Monroe and Cindy Crawford. It had helped shape generations of American attitudes toward sex, celebrity, and masculinity.

After the turn of the millennium, the internet had battered every line of its business. Its valuation sat near a historic low, and outside a small public float, most of the shares remained in the hands of the Hefner family.

That made it easy to take private.

To ordinary people, Haven Home might have looked sizable. But beside a global name like Playboy, a brand known across America and recognized around the world, it was still a local operator standing next to an icon.

To complete the acquisition, his methods were almost theatrical. He did not rush to negotiate with the Hefner family. First, he gathered evidence.

He had orchestrated the leaks dominating the news cycle.

The protest groups were backed by several women's rights organizations. He had supplied them with generous donations.

Several short sellers had published reports built on nonpublic operating data, enough to expose serious irregularities in the company's prior financial disclosures. Those materials had also come from him.

Wall Street smelled rot and descended like vultures. Before the SEC could announce an investigation, firms borrowed Playboy shares and sold them short, betting they could cover at a lower price.

A few days earlier, even a Democratic congressman had shown up at one of the rallies to pose for the cameras.

That part, he had not expected.

Only after the media, Wall Street, and Washington had all closed in did Julian Moretti step forward with an offer.

The Hefners had struggled. They had fought back.

None of it had mattered.

Hugh Hefner was smart. He had spent his life being cautious, and he had always kept an escape route open.

But he could not have imagined that his opponent was playing with fifteen years of hindsight.

That advantage had decided the fight before it began.

The old man said nothing more. He signed the family term sheet first. Christie and the other authorized representatives followed.

For a moment, it looked as though some part of his soul had been pulled out of him. In only a few seconds, he aged another ten years.

"I'm tired," he said, rising to his feet. "I'm going back to my room."

The red velvet robe, once his trademark, no longer looked glamorous.

As Julian walked out of the mansion, the legal team behind him broke into cheers.

"A new king has been crowned," Saul said, practically glowing. "Julian Moretti. Tomorrow, that name will be on front pages across the country."

Beyond the gates, camera flashes went off in a frenzy. Reporters with good sources had already heard that the negotiations were over. In Hollywood and on Wall Street, plenty of people were waiting for confirmation.

Julian adjusted his jacket and walked toward the press.

It was time to introduce himself to the public.

Then a line from the Bible came to him:

"For a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and He examines all his paths."

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