TA Medical's Defense
As a matter of fact, Kim Siwon had been receiving M&A proposals for quite some time.
Given how noticeable the trajectory of Kim Siwon and TA Medical had become, it was only natural.
After turning down three formal offers in that way, Kim Siwon had asked his team for their opinions during a meeting.
When an M&A was rejected at the CEO level, there were sometimes attempts to seize the company through a battle over its shares instead.
> You still remember the current equity distribution, how connections with those companies were formed, and exactly what points led them to invest in TA Medical, right?
> Of course.
So, based on Professor Shin Dongjin’s advice, Kim Siwon and Badugi had quickly prepared countermeasures.
“Hmm. You said the easiest one to persuade would be the person named Ha Juwon, since she’s the type who likes to make a lot of noise.”
Of course, the companies targeting TA Medical were moving behind the scenes as well.
“Hello, I’m Ha Juwon. I was told you had an inquiry about our product.”
The person who had approached Ha Juwon now was Jang Minjin.
A mid-sized company chairman who was planning to swallow TA Medical according to the scheme of his MBA classmate, Kang Sangyoon.
“But you asked me to come to a cafe instead of a hospital?”
Knowing nothing, Ha Juwon had come to meet Jang Minjin on the strength of a demo request that had come in.
“I’m sorry. To tell you the truth, that hospital belongs to my father. I’m Jang Minjin, and I work here.”
Jang Minjin smoothly handed Ha Juwon his business card.
The chairman of an IT company she had probably heard of at least once.
At the sight of that card, Ha Juwon felt a chill run down her spine.
She also immediately remembered what Kim Siwon had said during the meeting only days before.
“Haha. Did I scare you?”
“Ah. A little, yes.”
“If things go well between us, the product contract for my father’s hospital will be signed right away. No bothersome demo process or anything like that. Don’t worry.”
At the words “don’t worry,” Ha Juwon only grew more worried.
Whenever someone offered conditions that generous, there was always an ulterior motive.
“You do want TA Medical to become a bigger company, don’t you?”
Looking at the sales smile on Jang Minjin’s face, Ha Juwon became certain.
This man is after our company.
“A, are you talking about a merger and acquisition?”
“You catch on quickly. Have you already received a lot of related calls?”
Even after Ha Juwon’s sudden question, Jang Minjin did not look rattled.
He simply recited the lines he had prepared, calmly and without pause.
“In Korea, people have a very bad impression of mergers and acquisitions, but in the United States, where startup legends are so famous, the M&A exit rate is extremely high.”
After the last meeting, Ha Juwon had gone straight to look into the M&A process.
She had only ever imagined building a company so successful it would grow into a conglomerate; she had never considered that a startup could go in this direction, too.
So she understood immediately what Jang Minjin was saying.
“I’m sorry. We already discussed it during the meeting, and everyone here wants to keep growing the company rather than go through an acquisition.”
At that, Jang Minjin smiled until his eyes curved.
“M&A is a chance to grow by riding on the back of a bigger company.”
It was the kind of look a company chairman might give a college student with nothing but romance in his head.
“I’m not talking about those filthy conglomerates in some fantasy about destroying TA Medical. I mean you should stop worrying about investors and such, and expand quickly with our capital.”
Ha Juwon did not answer.
She figured she had no right to argue over a concept the chairman of a company would know better than she did.
“There’s no talk of driving out the existing members or anything like that, either. Who does that these days?”
Seeing that he had won the battle of nerve, Jang Minjin pressed on even more confidently.
“I contacted Ha Juwon first because I wanted to help the company grow well together, but are you really going to refuse without even hearing me out?”
“I told you that because our team had already agreed on the matter.”
As expected of Ha Juwon, who always spoke her mind, she gave a firm answer to the man who was dismissing her.
“If I were going to give you the standard speech, I would have talked to Kim Siwon.”
Jang Minjin responded just as firmly.
“If things go well, I’ll make sure your compensation or your standing inside the company is guaranteed in the contract.”
It was a roundabout way of saying it, but Ha Juwon was not stupid enough to miss the meaning.
He wanted her to use her shares to agree to the acquisition.
And because he emphasized that he had come to her first, he was clearly saying she would receive the best terms.
“This isn’t the time to be loyal. If it’s not you, I’ll just go meet someone else.”
“Everyone else thinks the same way I do.”
“Lee Seonghun will be different. He’s the one who needs money, after all.”
When he brought up Lee Seonghun’s name, and the business-related friction that had existed between them, Ha Juwon’s eyes widened.
Then, when he mentioned Lee Seonghun’s personal circumstances, something she had only recently learned herself, her feelings became even more unsettled.
“If a mid-sized company chairman is taking direct meetings with startup employees, then he’s not approaching this lightly.”
Only then did Ha Juwon truly feel she was face-to-face with the chairman of a major company.
And for the first time, she herself realized that she had lost the battle of nerve.
“I even brought the contract with me. You’ll be getting the best treatment among the current members.”
Jang Minjin kept poking at Ha Juwon’s competitive streak.
Don’t just sit behind Kim Siwon because you like being in the spotlight.
If you want attention. If you want to stand out. Then I’ll make that happen for you.
“If you don’t believe me, take a look at the contract.”
The contract laid out in front of Ha Juwon was filled, from the very first page, with terms that seemed advantageous to her.
A compensation package and an executive position that were hard to imagine at her age.
From Jang Minjin’s perspective, he intended to spend pocket change to create the first traitor, seat Ha Juwon in a non-regular executive post, and then terminate the contract within a short period of time.
“So? What do you think?”
Ha Juwon had not caught on to his real intentions.
“Ah. I’m sorry.”
Even so, she did not even read the contract.
“I don’t want a non-regular executive position. I want to be a successful startup co-founder.”
She had her own clear vision.
“You don’t even know how much TA Medical will grow, and if you get absorbed into an M&A and get bored of being an executive there, you can always move to another company.”
Slightly flustered, Jang Minjin could not understand why Ha Juwon was saying such things.
Was this just youthful stubbornness, unable to let go of a big dream?
That was all he could think.
“Ha Juwon. Listen. Even with startup subsidies on the rise, the percentage of companies that survive more than five years is absurd.”
“But you came here to meet me in person because you think we’ll survive, didn’t you?”
Youthful stubbornness. That was true.
But put differently, Ha Juwon had confidence in TA Medical.
If it was TA Medical under Kim Siwon’s leadership, she believed it would somehow keep running for not just five years, but fifty.
“Haha. Then I have no choice but to go straight to Lee Seonghun. In that case, I’ll have to pass this best possible offer to him instead.”
At that, Ha Juwon only lifted and dropped one shoulder.
“That won’t work on anybody here. I’m actually the least loyal person in the company.”
Jang Minjin’s brow furrowed at Ha Juwon’s confident reply.
But even that expression did not amount to a threat.
“We’re a company that runs a little on the strength of our representative’s reputation. If you want to talk about things like this, you’ll need to talk to Kim Siwon. Well, I’ll be going first.”
After Ha Juwon left the table without hesitation, Jang Minjin stared after her for a long time.
It was infuriating that a college kid with barely any skin on her bones had looked down on him so openly.
“Hah. Loyalty. What a load of crap.”
Naturally, Jang Minjin thought Ha Juwon was talking nonsense.
But Ha Juwon had been right.
He had made the same proposal to the other members, and every one of them had turned him down with the same answer.
“I’m sorry. We’re following Representative Kim Siwon, so I think it would be better if you discussed this directly with Representative Kim Siwon.”
It wasn’t even exactly the same proposal.
To Lee Seonghun, he had tried to offer a larger compensation package; to Choi Yeonghun, he had offered support for admission to an overseas graduate school, and so on, stressing the specific things each individual might want as much as possible.
But the situation Jang Minjin wanted never materialized.
There was no one who viewed TA Medical apart from Kim Siwon.
“A bunch of college students have gone collectively insane and are treating business like children’s play.”
Of course Jang Minjin was furious.
He had thought it would be more efficient to act himself than to use subordinates, and it angered him that even with his best effort, not a single person could be persuaded.
“Fine. Then I’ll just go after the investors.”
This time, Jang Minjin was confident.
He believed that if they met as company to company, they could simply talk from the standpoint of profit.
“It might even be better to persuade all the investors first and then pressure them. Tell them to get on board before it all goes to hell.”
By then, the M&A had become a matter of Jang Minjin preserving his pride.
But even the company-to-company meetings did not go smoothly.
“Ah. I’m sorry, but we’re tangled up pretty deeply with Representative Kim Siwon, so there are some conflicts of interest. Haha.”
When he heard a refusal from the medical company that had invested most recently, Jang Minjin froze.
“Could you tell me what kind of conflict of interest it is? I think it would be best to discuss it at least once.”
After finally collecting himself, Jang Minjin asked with a smile, but no specific answer came back.
“It’s a little difficult to explain in detail, but there are some interests involved with the associations and, well, among the doctors.”
The Kim Siwon Jang Minjin had assessed was just an orphaned college student.
It was admirable that he studied well and had worked hard, but he was not someone who could possibly affect the interests of the entrenched powers.
“Those, those kinds of things, we can build connections too.”
“Ah, but this is a little complicated. I’m sorry. There are also some reputation issues within the industry.”
Of course, the “interests” they were talking about had been built by Director Son Boyoon.
Because the Korea University alumni, the networks formed in academic societies, and everything else were all tightly intertwined, medical companies could not simply cut TA Medical off in one stroke.
From the beginning, those were the very companies Director Son Boyoon had selected as investors, precisely because she had anticipated a situation like this.
She had judged that TA Medical’s independence would only be secured if the investors were companies that had no choice but to watch their step around her.
“You’re awfully firm about this. Did Representative Kim Siwon tell you to shut down any talk of M&A in one stroke?”
“Yes. So please understand our position, too.”
Thanks to Kim Siwon moving quickly with Director Son Boyoon, none of the investment companies even thought about doing anything shady.
There was no reason to do anything that would make ugly talk spread through the medical industry just to earn a pittance.
“Damn. Professor Shin Dongjin is obviously a Korea University professor, so he wouldn’t do it. BRK Korea is foreign, so they’ll be strict.”
Jang Minjin was now in a position where he had no choice but to give up on the M&A.
He had failed to win over even a single supporter, let alone a majority.
“A startup that hasn’t even been around a year, and it’s this damn tough?”
Of course Jang Minjin wanted to do more if he could, but nothing else came to mind.
“Damn. I just wasted my time.”
So however bitter it was, he had no choice but to drop the plan for TA Medical.
And naturally, Jang Minjin discarded Kang Sangyoon without the slightest hesitation, too.
“What the hell is wrong with this bastard? Why isn’t he answering my calls all of a sudden?”
Kang Sangyoon, who had been brimming with expectation, was thrown off by the sudden cutoff from Jang Minjin.
For Kang Sangyoon, who had neglected his actual job in the grip of greed, it was a fairly shocking situation.
But Jang Minjin did not have time to worry about Kang Sangyoon now.