Eddie Jordan has given a glimpse into what former F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone was like with an anecdotal story about the time he was dragged to the "shortest meeting ever." The Irishman forged a close bond with the now 90-year-old during their time together in F1 and recalls the business acquisition he was invited to attend with the investment bank group, Salomen. "Bernie realised I had knowledge about banking, so he brought me to one of these meetings," Jordan told BBC Sounds’ This Sporting Life. "There’s a very esteemed company at the time who were called Salomen so all of Salomen’s board came and Bernie was hopelessly prepared for this. He said, ‘Jordan, you better come with me to this meeting’. "I said, ‘please tell me Bernie, what are we going to? What’s it about’? And of course, it was an acquisition, they wanted to pay $1.4billion. I mean, $1.4billion, this was a fortune, I wanted to check how many zeros make up a billion. "But anyway, we went along and he’s sitting across the table and there’s all these people who have flown in on Concorde and it’s very highfalutin stuff. They’re chatting about numbers and cash flows and spreadsheets and things I was familiar with, but it would have been far better off to have a qualified accountant there. "No, Bernie didn’t do things like that so it was, ‘Jordan, come with me’. So I’m sitting there and the next thing is, to my horror, he says something to the chairman of the board and the meeting had just started. We were getting ready with the pencils and the biros to take notes, and for some reason, he didn’t like it. That was exactly what Bernie was like. "Something was said that went against his mind, and he said, ‘what am I doing here’? He stood up and he said, ‘Jordan, you can stay if you like, but I’m out of here’. And I’m bewildered, I just don’t have a clue. He gets up and walks out and it’s now folklore at Salomen. "This is the shortest meeting they’ve ever had. The guy turned up, somebody said something in the preamble of the meeting and the next thing, he stands up, walks out and drags me out. In fact, he didn’t drag me out, he wanted me to stay. What am I going to do? I’m not going to sell or buy the team so let’s go, and that’s what happened."
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