The Ousted Director
A few days later, a board meeting was underway in the conference room at Tae Shin Asset Management. The agenda centered on one particular executive.
Chairman Oh Kang-gu stared at the results of the vote they had just conducted and let out a low groan.
“...”
Fourteen directors—both internal and external, including the representative of Tae Shin Asset Management—sat around him.
They were all waiting for Oh Kang-gu to announce the outcome of the agenda item.
Unable to drag things out any longer, he finally spoke, his voice heavy in the oppressive atmosphere.
“...Out of fifteen total executives, excluding the individual in question, fourteen members voted. By majority rule, fourteen votes in favor. Accordingly, the dismissal of Director Bong Joo-hyung has been approved.”
The man named Bong Joo-hyung was not present. The dismissal had been all but certain from the start, so he had chosen not to appear.
Naturally, the board meeting itself had been little more than a formality.
In addition, the employees who had directly leaked materials from the M&A/PEF Division received disciplinary action and were let go under recommended resignation.
Of course, Oh Kang-gu had tried to stop the situation from reaching this point.
But the board had been nailed down too firmly to flip. The evidence against those involved in the leak was simply too clear.
In that situation, even the head of the audit team he had pulled in beforehand suddenly turned against him.
I will neither conduct any unreasonable targeted audits nor accept any requests going forward.
Those were the words delivered while Oh Kang-gu had been speaking with Tae Ju-ha and Kang In-hyuk. To this day, Audit Team Leader Lee Dong-gyu had not explained his reasons.
Of course, Oh Kang-gu had tried threatening him with the things they had exchanged, but it was useless. From the circumstances, it seemed the man was under an even greater threat from someone else.
“Damn it...”
Oh Kang-gu hardened his expression and muttered the words so quietly that no one else could hear. In the end, he had lost one of his own from the internal executive faction.
By then the board meeting was wrapping up.
Tae Ju-ha, seated in the center, felt a refreshing sense of relief as she left the conference room with her secretary, Heo Yu-rim, who had been waiting in a chair near the entrance.
“Director. You might want to control your expression.”
“...Was it that obvious?”
“Your mouth kept twitching so much I thought you were having a seizure.”
The two kept their voices low enough that only they could hear each other.
While exchanging greetings with the others, they headed not to the representative’s office but up to the floor housing the M&A/PEF Division.
“Is Division Head Kang In-hyuk inside?”
At the question, Baek Si-hwan rose from his desk just outside the office.
“He is.”
After a knock and permission to enter, they stepped inside.
Kang In-hyuk, who had been working at his desk, slowly stood up.
“I saw the board notice that just came up. It looks like everything was handled cleanly.”
“Thanks to you. Still, I’m surprised Director Bong Joo-hyung didn’t sell out his superiors. I thought we had him properly cornered, but maybe it wasn’t enough.”
“What scares him more right now isn’t you, Director, but the other side. They promised to take care of him after the dismissal, after all. But now that the balance has broken, things should be easier than before.”
“Even so, we’ve only lost a little ground compared to the chairman’s people.”
In truth, despite holding shares in Tae Shin Asset Management, Tae Ju-ha’s real authority was not that significant.
Everyone treated her as representative only because Chairman Tae Geon-seung stood behind her. Even that protection was now seen as a candle flickering in the wind, with little time left.
The difference of a single person didn’t feel particularly large.
“It seems you want control of Tae Shin Asset Management, but won’t President Tae Seok-hyun hand over the promised shares before long anyway?”
Tae Ju-ha’s face stiffened slightly at those words.
The shares promised by her father, Tae Seok-hyun, on the condition of marriage—less than six months remained until that deadline. The same was true for In-hyuk’s quiet married life.
“That’s… true.”
“Even if you combine every internal director’s shares, it’s still under seven percent. Meanwhile, your own holdings plus the gifted shares come to nearly nine percent. There shouldn’t be any major issues.”
The numbers looked small because they were single digits, but in the context of Tae Shin Asset Management’s current value, they represented hundreds of billions of won.
Even so, Tae Ju-ha’s goal was the complete independence of Tae Shin Asset Management. Since the current situation fell short of that, her dissatisfaction was clear.
“Even if you add the company’s own shares and all internal holdings, it barely exceeds thirty percent. Adding the gifted shares only brings it to about thirty-four percent. That’s still less than the thirty-six percent held by group headquarters, so the governance structure won’t change.”
“I’ll secure the necessary funds before our contract ends.”
At that moment Tae Ju-ha’s eyes flew wide open.
“You’re not suggesting you’ll use the customer investment money that came into the fund side to buy shares, are you?”
“That’s already been fully allocated to investments, so I can’t. There’s another way. I can’t explain the details right now, though.”
At In-hyuk’s calm reply, she let out a sigh.
“You never give me a straight answer. On another note, the security system I proposed will be applied not only to the M&A/PEF Division but across the entire company system.”
“Does that mean it received approval from group headquarters?”
Tae Shin Group used the same system throughout, so without their permission it would have been impossible.
“That’s correct. To be precise, the chairman made the final decision.”
“That’s fortunate.”
“The chairman showed interest in the matter of ousting Director Bong.”
Tae Ju-ha studied In-hyuk’s reaction. The atmosphere suggested he had heard something more.
“He must be busy with group affairs, yet he seems more interested in Tae Shin Asset Management than I expected.”
“Precisely because of that. Honestly, even I was quite surprised. Not only did he decisively remove Director Bong, but he also used the situation to approve the new security system. Were you planning this from the beginning when you asked to use the file management system arbitrarily?”
She too had tried to find ways to check the opposing executives until now, but nothing had worked. They were far too slippery, and their accumulated power and experience inside Tae Shin Asset Management were simply too strong.
Yet the moment In-hyuk established the M&A/PEF Division, he had used it as bait, set things in motion, and taken out a single man.
“It wasn’t intentional.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Director Bong Joo-hyung panicked and tripped over his own feet.”
“But is it really all right that the information went to Omega? I heard last time that there was no problem, but since it involves the Cheolsan Capital bid intermediation, I can’t help worrying about it.”
In-hyuk offered her a faint smile.
“I knew from the beginning there was a rat inside the M&A/PEF Division. I had already identified who it was. Naturally, I made sure no materials containing truly important content reached them.”
“So the contents of those materials were all fake…?”
“The ratio of current assets to reserved assets of the bidding companies, income statements, capital change tables, things like that. Omega will notice before long.”
Tae Ju-ha let out a sigh at the same time.
“Next time you plan something like this, at least give me a warning in advance.”
“There’s a saying that to deceive the enemy, you must first deceive your own allies.”
At that moment Tae Ju-ha’s gaze turned strange.
“...Am I an ally?”
“For now, yes. As long as you don’t turn me into an enemy, Director.”
“Ah...”
Seeming to feel the words on multiple levels, Tae Ju-ha quietly closed her mouth.
“But did you come here because you were curious how I removed Director Bong? There’s no other business, right?”
“That was the main reason. And since I put in considerable effort, I also came to inform you of the board results. Are you very busy?”
“I have external matters to attend to, so I’ll need to leave soon.”
“You seem to be handling most of your work outside in the afternoons lately. Are there really that many external meetings?”
It had happened more than once or twice. The frequency exceeded even that of the sales staff, so it was bound to look suspicious.
“To generate returns on fund investments, you have to start by doing the legwork yourself.”
“What are the other employees doing, then?”
“They’re busy carrying out the tasks I assigned them. Besides, I have no intention of moving funds based on anything I haven’t seen and heard myself.”
His answer was firm.
It overlapped with the cold In-hyuk she had known at the time of their marriage, only deepening her questions.
“I didn’t realize you were this passionate about your work.”
“Once I decide to do something, I do it properly. Anyway, if there’s nothing else, I’ll take my leave.”
“...Go ahead.”
In-hyuk gathered his jacket and bag, then left the office together with Tae Ju-ha. Hong Yu-geon and Van Hester, his bodyguards, followed close behind.
“Now that I think about it, Section Chief Baek Si-hwan always seems to stay at his post. Doesn’t he accompany you as your executive secretary?”
“There’s a lot of internal material for him to organize, just like the other employees. Bodyguards are sufficient for external work. Then, if you’ll excuse me.”
The elevator had already arrived. In-hyuk stepped in with the two bodyguards.
As the doors closed from both sides, Tae Ju-ha unconsciously let out a sigh.
“Hmm...”
“What’s wrong?”
Startled, Tae Ju-ha turned around. There stood Heo Yu-rim, her secretary, who had been following her from the beginning.
She had noticed Tae Ju-ha staring at the elevator with an odd expression and asked quietly.
“Why are you standing there without making a sound?”
“...Making a sound?”
It was only natural for the executive secretary to stay beside her, the representative.
“Ah, never mind. Let’s return to my office.”
.
.
.
At the same time.
Oh Kang-gu returned to his office with Managing Director Yang Chan-woo and sat down.
“Damn it—! Why is everything twisting like this?!”
Yang Chan-woo, watching from his seat, felt just as anxious. Every employee they had planted or recruited inside the M&A/PEF Division had been wiped out, and even Bong Joo-hyung, the man they had pushed forward to direct them, had just been formally dismissed.
“How should we proceed with the plan? In the current state, it may be difficult for us to assist that person.”
“How many have turned?”
“The ones confirmed so far are the audit team leader, the risk management team leader, the bond operation division head, the marketing division head, and the alternative investment division’s second team leader.”
They were all individuals the pair had recruited at Tae Shin Asset Management. Since those people had gained something from Oh Kang-gu, their defection was even harder to understand.
“Have you figured out what Kang In-hyuk used to recruit them?”
“They all gave the same answer—that they would not get involved in any fratricidal strife going forward and would focus only on their assigned duties.”
“Hah… fratricidal strife? If only they could keep their mouths shut… Don’t they remember what they’ve been doing all this time?”
“But since they also hold things over us, applying pressure might not be easy.”
Oh Kang-gu, Yang Chan-woo, and Bong Joo-hyung had promised the recruited individuals promotions in exchange for various pieces of information. They had also kept the opposing faction’s executives in check and even resorted to actions bordering on illegal.
This was not disadvantageous only to those who had turned. From an executive’s position, there was even more to lose, making the situation worse for them.
“We can’t just kick them out immediately either…”
“If we did, the Nam executive line would simply fill the positions with their own people.”
In the end, they were caught in a dilemma with no easy exit.
“We have to resolve this somehow before the Cheolsan Capital bid.”
“Is there really no way? Besides, if Kang In-hyuk has caught their weakness to that degree, he may have uncovered information about us as well.”
“And extracting internal materials has become even more impossible.”
The new security system proposed by Kang In-hyuk had received full group approval and was now set to be implemented not only in the M&A/PEF Division but across all of Tae Shin Asset Management.
That very system had caught Director Bong Joo-hyung’s tail. It was an excellent measure for the company, but it also made it far harder to discover what else Kang In-hyuk might be plotting.
Vrrrr— Vrrrr—
At that moment, Oh Kang-gu’s phone, left on the table, began to vibrate. It was a call from Jeon Jun-seok, executive director of Tae Shin Life and former representative of Tae Shin Asset Management.