Shareholders' Meeting
The shareholders' meeting.
As a corporation's highest decision-making body, it was the place where even ordinary shareholders could take part in the company's management.
"I am Seong Hyeon-jun, serving as chair. I hereby declare the forty-seventh regular shareholders' meeting of Ttukbaegi open."
That was the common understanding, at least. Gather the shareholders, raise a big enough ruckus, and the company would have no choice but to listen.
"You're going to have a rough time of it today, aren't you?"
"Why?"
"Look at Ttukbaegi's numbers. Even with the recent good economy they still posted an earnings shock…"
You only learned what reality looked like by living through it. Sora waved the pamphlet she'd been handed at the entrance and rattled on without pause.
She actually thinks this is some kind of tribunal for judging management.
The truth was nothing of the sort. I didn't need to spell it out; she would see for herself soon enough.
"Mr. Chairman!!"
One of the attendees shot his hand straight up and demanded the floor.
"See? Ttukbaegi's stock has completely shattered like a broken pot lately. Even the hard-line shareholders are practically drooling brain fluid at this point."
Sora had a point. Every now and then a shareholder really did show up with knives sharpened.
But these people haven't been running a company for a day or two.
They had seen that type before. And they came prepared with perfect countermeasures.
"I am infinitely grateful to be granted the first speaking rights. I would like to give a round of applause to the executives and employees who have worked so hard under difficult conditions."
"???"
A question mark practically floated above Sora's head. The atmosphere was nothing like what she had imagined.
"I believe we all already know the performance figures, so perhaps we could move through them quickly?"
"Ah, we have heard our shareholder's excellent suggestion! If that is the will of the room, we shall proceed accordingly."
The shareholder was thoroughly company-friendly. Whether the speech was for the shareholders or for the company itself was anyone's guess.
It's a Truman Show, I tell you.
The whole thing was staged. Sora had half-raised her hand at the sudden shift when a thunderous roar erupted.
"I agree!!"
The other shareholders shared the exact same opinion. Astonishingly so.
"Wh-what is this?"
"I despair of ever seeing your intelligence get an upgrade."
"I figured it out too, okay!"
It wasn't just one or two people. The overwhelming majority of attendees had been dispatched by the company itself.
"I agree!!"
"Oh, look at that."
That was how it went. When nearly everyone present was voting yes, voicing opposition was no easy task. The meeting wrapped up at lightning speed. What should have taken several hours was over in a mere thirty minutes.
"……."
Sora looked even more vacant than usual. Aside from her impressive chest, she was the kind of girl you almost felt embarrassed to take out in public.
"This is a shareholders' meeting?"
"Yep."
"Osung Electronics wasn't like this."
"They're a global conglomerate. Different league entirely."
No matter how much criticism they absorbed, the class of company was simply different. But the rest of Korea's corporations?
They don't even meet the bare minimum.
They were still running things 1980s-style. Shareholders' meetings were held for form's sake alone.
"You know, show-and-tell? The kind of fake you do because you have to. You never did military service, so of course you wouldn't get it."
"I've heard of it."
"Right. That's how it's done."
You had to hold one once you were registered as a stock company. Korean firms wanted all the rights with none of the obligations. One look at how a shareholders' meeting actually ran told you everything about how domestic companies viewed their shareholders.
"Got it?"
"There have to be better companies than this, though."
"There are."
If every company were only this bad, we'd be lucky.
They ignored shareholders; they didn't treat them like complete idiots. Sora still had no idea how the world worked. We moved on to the next venue—one that would make her realize this place had been the mild version.
"That was the mild flavor."
"Mild?"
"You know how it is. Koreans say Shin Ramyun isn't even spicy, but to foreigners it burns their mouths off."
By global standards, Ttukbaegi was already out of bounds. Pull that stunt in America and the pot really would fly. Korea was different. Companies that did far worse turned up all the time.
"I think this is the place…"
"You sure?"
"Of course. I even double-checked on the way here."
We had decided to attend another company's meeting. Judging by the number of stocks Sora had been stuck with, it wasn't just one or two firms.
If I cut her loose, I'd probably find her in a love motel within five years.
The thought crossed my mind. A bear market made it somewhat understandable, but still.
"This is definitely the place! What the hell?"
Her blank expression still refused to become familiar. She was still thinking from a retail investor's point of view.
"When exactly are you going to grow up?"
"No, this is the right address. Look at the map!"
"Think for a second. Wouldn't it be better for them if they held the shareholders' meeting in secret?"
"?????"
The shareholders' meeting—the place where shareholders could participate in management.
From the company's perspective, it's a nuisance.
The ants who were supposed to just hand over money were raising their voices. So companies used every trick in the book to shut them up.
Notice of Change of Venue for the 52nd Regular Shareholders' Meeting — Haram
One of those tricks: simply change the location of the meeting. If you didn't show up, you couldn't exercise voting rights or anything else. Online voting would eventually become possible, but at this point you still had to appear in person.
"See? They switched the venue at the last minute."
"……."
"Coming to a shareholders' meeting without even knowing this basic trick… you really have no fundamentals."
That was the method. Common knowledge if you wanted to attend a shareholders' meeting in Korea. I took the still-dazed Sora and headed to the new location. The deserted interior said everything.
How convenient when the shareholders don't show.
There were more employees than actual shareholders. Still, a few had made it.
"Hey buddy, bring your girlfriend to the shareholders' meeting?"
"She's mine, yeah."
"Heh~! Back in my day I used to make the girls cry too~."
The middle-aged man in the next seat struck up conversation. When he wiggled his pinky, Sora pinched the back of my hand.
Can't even take a joke.
The bald guy didn't seem to think it was a joke; he kept chattering away beside us.
"You know why they changed the venue?"
"Why?"
"These bastards are exploiting the local farms~."
There was a reason their feet were itching. Holding a secret meeting meant they feared backlash. Exploitation of regional farms—a common story among Korea's secondary-industry firms.
"I hereby declare the fifty-second regular shareholders' meeting of Haram open."
Companies never wanted things to escalate. They preferred to slide through as quietly as possible. With almost no shareholders present to exercise voting rights, the meeting proceeded with perfect smoothness.
"This is outrageous!"
Of course, not every seat was empty. One shareholder who had discovered the venue change exploded in anger.
"You own a handful of shares and you're coming to someone else's company meeting to cause a scene? How many shares do you even have?"
"A scene? I'm a shareholder of this company too! A shareholder!"
The logic of power. Companies that actually listened to small shareholders were rare in Korea.
Voting rights scale with the number of shares, after all.
Own only a few and you were ignored. Institutions got the soft treatment; individuals weren't even treated as shareholders.
"That thug is the chairman?"
"Vice-chairman, actually."
"Chairman or vice-chairman, you still can't act like that!"
Sora had every right to be angry. She was still naive enough to believe society ran on common sense.
She's just never seen a real thug yet.
Even this was still within the bounds of normal. Attend enough different shareholders' meetings and you started to feel it.
Screech—
We arrived at the next location. POSCO. One of Korea's representative steel companies; even people who knew nothing about stocks recognized the name Pohang Steelworks.
The Miracle of Pohang and all that.
It genuinely occupied a major branch of Korean history. Without a steel mill the economy didn't turn. But they were still trapped inside that history—a company that epitomized 1980s-style management.
In front of the POSCO Center, protestors with placards were staging a sit-in. The atmosphere already felt ominous.
"They're real bastards!"
"Them?"
"No—the company! Local residents are suffering from the pollution…"
This was the proper function of a shareholders' meeting. When a company did wrong, shareholders could stop it. Gather enough voting rights and it became possible. Staging a protest was already escalating the issue.
"Excuse me, please move. We need to go in!"
"Not allowed."
"We're shareholders who bought stock in this company. We're here for the meeting."
"Sorry."
They blocked the entrance completely. Burly thugs stood in a line, running a full-court press.
A tradition you can even find painted on Goguryeo tomb murals—the watermelon defense.
You could spot the same formation in classic games like The Kingdom of the Winds and StarCraft. No amount of talking made them step aside.
"Hey, move!"
"What the hell are you guys? Company-hired gangsters, right? Huh?!"
They only answered because it was Sora. Middle-aged men and women who shouted and cursed were simply ignored.
"Does this make any sense?"
"Sense or not, it's reality."
"Nooo~!!"
Even if she cast an "Initiating" spell or threw a tantrum, the truth refused to change. Sora simply didn't want to accept it. She stomped off, chest bouncing with every heavy step, and tried arguing with the police who had been called to the scene.
"I understand what you're saying, miss."
"Can't you do something faster?"
"At the end of the day this is private property. Just like you can stop someone from walking into your own house, if the owner of that building says no entry, we can't mediate either~."
There were connections. Companies only pulled stunts like this when they had something solid to lean on.
The real owners of a company are the shareholders, though.
That basic concept simply didn't exist. That was why you couldn't demand common sense from Korean corporations.
"It's a shareholders' meeting. I'm a shareholder."
"What you're thinking of is a normal shareholders' meeting. This is a K-shareholders' meeting."
"……."
Doesn't she know that anything with a K in front of it turns weird?
She was still pure. A little of the tadpole's hind legs had started to poke out, but she was still a tadpole.
"Companies really are the problem. If only the companies changed, our country could grow so much more."
"You really think so?"
"Well, don't you?"
It was about time Sora got a little dirt on her too.