From Businessweek: The white yacht bobbed at the end of a
pier on the St. Johns River in Central Florida. On the opposite riverbank,
several men tried to convey boredom from a distance: stretching, taking off
sunglasses, yawning, squinting, replacing sunglasses. The small team’s leader,
Ken Cage, peeked at the boat through binoculars, then turned with a snap.
“That’s the one,” he said.
The four men—Cage, his No. 2 man, a boat captain, and a
driver—hustled into two trucks, wheeled over a river bridge, and entered the
marina. They walked quickly along the waterfront until they saw their target—a
gleaming Luhrs yacht—and huddled again behind a patch of tall grass. “That has
to be our boat,” Cage said. “Has to be.” The team fell silent. An alligator lay
motionless in the grass three feet away.
Cage and his guys make a living taking from the rich. He’s
one of a handful of the world’s most sophisticated repo men. And while the
language may be different from the doorbusters who grab TVs, the game is the
same: On behalf of banks Cage nabs high-dollar toys from self-styled magnates
who find themselves overleveraged. Many of the deadbeat owners made a killing
in finance and real estate during the economic bubble—expanding it, even—and
were caught out of position when it burst. So now men like Cage steal $20
million jets like they were jalopies. And fast boats. Even, on one occasion, a
racehorse…..
Wait, wait…there’s more at http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-10-25/the-luxury-repo-men#r=nav-f-story
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