They each buy Prospecta stock and Metcalfe (indirectly) sells out at the top of the market. Metcalfe's agents hire David Kesler, a Harvard MBA who talks up the company to the four protagonists: Stephen Bradley, an American professor at the University of Oxford Dr Robin Oakley, a Harley Street doctor Jean-Pierre Lamanns, a French art dealer with a gallery in London and James Brigsley, heir to an earldom. Taking advantage of a British decision to allow companies to claim North Sea oil drilling rights with little money down, Metcalfe creates Prospecta Oil, a paper company designed to look good and bring in investors, to be left hanging out to dry when the bottom drops out. Over 40 years, he has mastered the shady deal, and by the 1960s is a multi-millionaire. Harvey Metcalfe, a Polish immigrant to the United States, rises from messenger boy to corporate magnate, combining business skills with little loyalty and much ruthlessness. It was said to have been inspired by Archer's real-life experience of near- bankruptcy. Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less was Jeffrey Archer's first novel, first published in 1976.
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