In the space of a month, since Prince Turki had written Najib with his proposal in late August, a multi-billion-dollar joint-venture agreement had been completed. Such a time frame—to complete due diligence, asset valuations, and other legal checks—was virtually without parallel. Such deals normally take months, if not a year, to wrap up. A 1MDB employee later compared the process to attempting to read the entire works of Shakespeare in an hour.