according to author george gunby, epstein told the beatles' publicist alistair taylor that stigwood had originally offered to buy nems, but the deal eventually became a merger, in which stigwood would have to put all his company assets into nems; in return he would have received a reciprocal shareholding in nems, plus a salary, an executive position as co-managing director, and access to all of nems now-considerable financial and other resources.