How Private Equity Works
ETSD.
Taking first place in sales at the Hankuk University festival every single year was no accident.
"We're completely out of makgeolli!"
"We've got a backup order ready. Soo-hyuk, grab it from the warehouse. Don't keep the customers waiting."
"Yes, sir! Heading there right now!"
It piled up. Layer upon layer. The know-how accumulated by the club seniors was passed down to the next generation, and that was how they had come to run an operation that rivaled any proper restaurant. For the duration of the grand festival, at least, they were invincible.
Inventory management is flawless.
Club president Cha Yu-jun made a circuit of the booth, checking that everyone was doing their jobs properly.
Sizzle…!
In the kitchen, they turned carefully managed stock into food. This wasn't a culinary arts department, so specialists were scarce, but—
"Isn't that pajeon a little burnt?"
"Customers actually prefer it with a bit of char. Makes it crispier."
"Right. Myung-hoon, you're the specialist. Handle it however you want."
ETSD had a deep bench of members. That meant they could cherry-pick talent—people who could actually cook. Myung-hoon, who held a Korean cuisine cook's certificate, ran the kitchen. The rest of the roster was filled with members who each had something going for them.
"Seafood one, cheese one, cube one—what number is that?"
"That's number two. They've been waiting a while, so hurry it up."
Out on the floor, they had likewise put the right people in the right places. Pretty female students worked as waitresses, dressed in matching cute uniforms rented from a costume shop for the festival period.
You think you can pull this off? Not even close.
Yu-jun had heard the talk. The Stock Club kids were sharpening their knives, trying to boost their customer numbers. They were trying all sorts of things. It wouldn't matter. They would learn soon enough that grit alone did not make a business.
"Let's go to that place over there."
"Why? This one's cheaper and there's already a crowd…"
"No, the staff over there is insane!"
Of course, there was one thing that niggled at him. That junior who had come to see them—the one whose presence had been overwhelming.
"Her chest is ridiculously huge!"
"Come on, how big could it really be?"
"Just go once and see for yourself. I'm telling you it's real."
It might draw some of the male customers' eyes. But only some.
We've got cute waitresses of our own.
Right on cue, she came into view—the woman he loved more than anyone else in the world.
"Hey, move a little faster already!"
"Sorry…"
"Does 'sorry' fix anything?"
They looked busy. Herding the dazed freshmen around was going to take some work. She spotted him and waved. Yu-jun waved back.
"We're slammed right now. Why'd you come?"
"I'm the club president, aren't I? Just checking in."
"Is that so~?"
"Truth is, I just wanted to see my girl~."
In his eyes she was prettier than anyone alive. Small chests were his preference, too. Anyway.
They might make a little noise for a while.
In the end, they would be the ones laughing. The difference was in the profit structure. Economics department. As a senior, he would teach them that business was not something you achieved by sweating blood.
A hotshot chef. A head cook who had made a name for himself at a luxury hotel.
Most of them go under the moment they open their own place.
Business and cooking were completely different animals. Being a first-rate chef did not make you a first-rate restaurant owner. Modern cooking was mostly reduced to recipes. Neighborhood-level food service did not require some god-tier skill set.
"Senior!"
"What took you so long?"
"Get over here and help with something already~."
At best, he was one extra pair of hands. Slight differences in taste did not register with the general public.
If you grind it out for years, you might build some word of mouth.
This wasn't a cooking manga. Nobody was going to take one bite and scream delicious. Rumors took time.
"Seriously, what were you doing that you only just got here!"
"Ask Hye-ri."
"Hye-ri? Whatever—just help already!"
No matter how hard Sora tried, there was a ceiling. The second he arrived she started hounding him.
Just a pair of absurdly huge tits.
Of course, absurdly huge tits still pulled aggro. No—they pulled a lot of it.
Inside the stall, the emptiness from when they first opened had thinned out. The reason was obvious.
"Whoa."
"Whoa…"
"Wow!"
More than a few pairs of eyes kept flicking toward Sora. Which was why he had said it from the start.
"I told you to just run a snack bar."
"What's a snack bar?"
"You don't know? Want me to teach you?"
"Kya!"
He slung an arm around Sora's shoulders. Not exactly to build camaraderie.
When you drink with a girl under your arm like this, even a fifty-thousand-won bottle goes down like three hundred thousand.
There was a reason people paid the premium. The bigger the chest, the better the liquor tasted. Someday he wanted a quiet drink with Sora—and if the glass ran dry, he would pour into the valley too.
"Wh-what do you think you're doing!"
"Roughly a place like this."
"Do you want to get hit for real?"
She still hadn't blossomed. Even simple skinship made her clench her fists and tremble.
Figured as much.
If they had gone with Plan A, they might have put up a decent fight. The other side wouldn't have even bothered copying them. Cube steak was a common item. The side that sold thin and sold volume always won.
"I'll let it slide."
"You're actually letting that slide?"
"I heard from Hye-ri."
"H-heard what?"
"That you know how to cook, Senior."
A little better than average in the kitchen? Completely meaningless. This wasn't Food Wars.
I don't do the whole 'win a cooking battle and it was nothing special' routine.
A stock battle would be more fun. Mere cooking could never make his heart race.
Thud!
A plastic chair. One armrest was half broken, but he sat without caring. They should be arriving any minute.
"What are you doing right now!"
"You sit next to me too."
"We're in a rush, okay? Don't you see everyone else working?"
"Oh for crying out loud. You can't even do hospitality."
When a private equity guy sat down, the partner staff were supposed to scramble on their own.
At least let me cop a feel so I don't get bored.
That level of power play. At a major corporation it would be a problem, but private equity funds were thug collectives by nature. It was a shame Sora had no talent for entertaining clients. Still, he had already received Hye-ri's service, so—
Thud!
Thump. Thump.
He bestowed it. This was why he had once been called a legend in the private equity world.
The delivery he had ordered arrived in front of the booth. Packing boxes stacked up one after another.
"What is all this?"
"Meat."
"We already have plenty of meat? We bought three days' worth already…"
"Don't know. Eat it at the after-party or something."
"Excuse me??"
As a rule, you did not go to restaurants with "youth" or whatever slapped on the name. The passion was admirable; the business sense was a separate matter.
If this company were publicly listed, I would never have bought the stock.
It was all seat-of-the-pants. Even now, Sora's chest was heaving with effort, while—
Sizzle…!
The cooking staff in front of the griddle were clearly dying. Standing over a hot plate in early summer. No amount of pure effort made hard work any less hard.
And the meat quality is garbage too.
The grade of meat that went into cube steak was predictable. Making it taste good took real attention. Physical drain. They were even stir-frying the vegetables by hand; in a couple of hours their souls would be halfway to heaven.
"What's this?"
"Seasoning bottles. Oyster sauce, ketchup, and…"
"No. That's trash. Clear it all out and throw it away."
"W-what did you just say?!"
A cook's job was to make things delicious. An investor looked only at efficiency.
Work part-timers like this and they'll quit inside three days.
They would vanish without even leaving a KakaoTalk message. That efficiency covered the entire restaurant operation.
Riiip!
He tore open a box and stacked the contents neatly beside the griddle.
"That's… meat?"
"You don't know meat? It's the flesh you separate from an animal so you can eat it."
"You son of a bitch."
There was a reason Sora looked shocked. At a glance it looked like retort-pouch food.
That's exactly how I made it.
Vacuum-sealed contents. Meat inside. Look closer and you could see spices mixed in—bay leaf, rosemary, minced garlic, salt and pepper. Everything to bring out the steak flavor.
"We season ours too, you know."
"Haa…"
"Why are you sighing?"
"Because you're roughly seasoning that tasteless meat and trying to sell it, which is why nothing's moving."
"A-are you here to pick a fight?!"
"Watch. I'll show you how business is actually done."
An investor's business. Ruthlessly efficient. And of course that efficiency included "taste."
Not cube steak garbage. Real steak.
The kind where a single slice sent juices dripping. They would cut it for customer convenience, but the quality was in a different league.
"How are you supposed to grill fancy steaks like that one by one!"
"Yeah, so I prepped them so you can just slap them on roughly."
"Huh?"
This kind of steak was every restaurant's dream. Reality's barriers were higher than people thought.
Managing chefs is no joke.
Their salaries ran several times higher. If one took personal leave, the whole restaurant ground to a halt. High-end food like steak had massive taste variance. When a part-timer grilled it, you could tell immediately.
"Try grilling one."
"H-how do I grill it? I've never cooked something like this…"
"Just grill it like someone who's never cooked it before."
No seasoning. Nothing. He handed it to the club member in charge of cooking. The kid froze at first, then steeled himself and laid it on the griddle.
Sizzle…!
Grilling steak properly was not easy. Maillard reaction this, basting with melted butter that—the more you knew, the more complicated the process became. Which was why he had done all of it in advance.
"It's done."
"What? The meat's thick—the inside can't be cooked yet…"
"It already came fully cooked. Just cut it roughly and eat."
Confit. A method of slow-cooking for a long time in oil. The meat he had brought had already finished its first-stage confit cooking. The inside was already tender and moist, fully infused with the spice aromas. A quick sear on the outside and you had a finished steak.
This way you don't need a skilled chef at all.
A part-timer who could roughly grill meat was enough. And this one looked like he had grilled plenty of meat before.
"Whoa, this is fucking delicious!"
"Let me try. Oooh…!!"
"This is insane? It actually tastes like restaurant steak."
"I-I want some too!"
The club members who had been hanging back. The moment one of them tasted it, everyone else went crazy trying to get a bite. No separate taste evaluation needed. He did not waste time on that kind of cut.
Ah, no cigar.
This was the moment for a click—lighting up and taking a drag for that sense of professional fulfillment. The satisfaction of teaching idiots.
Sora stared at the transformed booth with her mouth half open. No more need to nickel-and-dime the cost of goods and fight on price.
Cost came out to roughly twelve hundred won per serving.
That figure included various labor costs. To cook in bulk he had borrowed a nearby restaurant's facilities.
"I'd like to prepare for the university festival…"
A regular hangout. When he asked if he could use the kitchen on their day off, they agreed readily. Being a young person helped sometimes. The total also included the express delivery fees.
"What are you staring at. Go work."
"W-what about you, Senior?"
"I am working."
"It looks like you're completely slacking…"
"Dozens of you working day and night for three days couldn't pull this off. I did it alone."
He jerked a thumb at the pile of steaks. She clenched her fists, clearly unhappy. But no comeback came to mind, so she just glared with puffed-out cheeks.
Why would I work? I trade stocks so I can live easy.
That was the job. An eye for value, and you printed money. Running a restaurant was the same principle. You acquired businesses that incompetent owners had run into the ground. Even those garbage, bottom-tier outfits came back to life like magic once they passed through his hands. After a few rounds of that—
"You're selling this at a university festival?"
"One steak, please."
"Me too!"
"Two for me!"
"Steak at a university festival… this is legendary."
They had called him that once, he supposed. All he had to do was present the perfect profit structure, and the work was finished.
Work, you slaves.
He was an investor, not a chef.