Crazier Than Me
Gulp— gulp—
...
The team members stared blankly at Team Leader Song Jiwoon as he downed an ice-packed Americano in a single draught. A moment later, he slammed the cup—empty to the last drop—down on the table with a crack.
"They've all lost their minds. This company—and our Team Leader Kang right along with it."
As if in wholehearted agreement, the team members nodded.
"Senior. Are you angry, by any chance?"
"Hm? Why would I be?"
"From a Delta One man's standpoint, Team Leader Kang's decision today has to be impossible to swallow. How should I put it... it feels like he's decided to throw one big do-or-die gamble."
At Cheon Doa's question, Song Jiwoon burst into a chuckle and shook his head.
"Quite the opposite, actually. My heart's been pounding like a lunatic's all through that meeting. I just chugged this to calm myself down."
"I'm sorry?"
"I said it before, didn't I? Both this company and Team Leader Kang have lost their minds. Think about it. They scraped together every ace inside Daeseong Securities and even the top talent from outside to build a super team—and then headquarters hands them a grand total of 10 billion won."
That was the most absurd part of it all. They had laid out this grand board, gone so far as to stage a sweeping recruitment drive, and then handed over live ammunition worth a measly 10 billion won.
"And Team Leader Kang answered that blatant, contemptible squeeze from headquarters with a masterstroke: ten-times leverage."
If headquarters would only hand over 10 billion won, he would blow it up through leverage into a 100-billion-won game in a single stroke—a certifiably insane idea. In the most literal sense, neither headquarters nor Kang Suho was in their right mind.
"I understand why you got worked up, Senior. Facing headquarters' filthy attack head-on without flinching—of course the men's blood boiled at the sight. But we have to look at this coldly. Ten-times leverage means the moment we slip, all 10 billion goes up in smoke, and our team gets blown apart exactly the way headquarters wants."
Cheon Doa's point was not wrong. The sizzling notion of growing the board was fine as far as it went, but pulling ten times the leverage meant the risk climbed just as vertically—and catastrophically.
"And that's not all. Headquarters has already nailed the 10-billion-won cap into the regulations, haven't they? In other words, even if we wanted to pull ten-times leverage, Daeseong Securities can't advance us the money internally. That would mean breaking headquarters' rules to their face."
Normally, a securities firm's team using leverage was perfectly natural. As long as you cleared the risk management team's meticulous vetting, you could pull leverage at quite high multiples without any trouble.
But this time was different. With headquarters having fixed the cap at 10 billion won, leverage through Daeseong Securities' internal systems was as good as sealed off at the source.
"Exactly. Daeseong Securities can't pull leverage internally."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"When I first heard about the ten-times leverage, my blood did heat up a little, but I looked at it as coolly as you did, Team Leader Cheon. Even if we wanted to pull leverage, so long as headquarters was holding the line, there was nothing Daeseong Securities could do for us."
So long as the rules headquarters had explicitly laid down existed, no amount of wholehearted backing from the CEO and the executive board could give Kang Suho a way through.
"Which is exactly why we need these reports."
Team Leader Song rapped his fingers against the two reports lying on the table.
Analysis Report: KOSPI Downside Volatility Amid an Escalating US–China Trade Dispute
Operational Proposal: Maximizing Leverage Through TRS (Total Return Swap)
The US–China trade conflict was the hot potato currently scorching financial markets around the globe. And at the center of it stood Donald Trumbell, who had taken office as president of the United States the year before.
"President Trumbell has been shouting it every single day since before his election, hasn't he? That he'd bring a terrifying tariff hammer down on China."
"But wasn't that just a political show to round up votes? Would he really go through with it?"
Having branded China America's greatest enemy and ridden the fervent backing of the conservative camp on his back, Trumbell had clawed his way into the president's seat against all expectations. But what politician in any country doesn't toss out this promise and that before election day, beguiling the voters? Waging an all-out trade war against the great power of China, moreover, would be a colossal negative shock—not just for America but for the entire world economy. That was why no US president had ever ventured rashly into that territory before.
"That Trumbell character, going by his usual conduct, is no ordinary lunatic. Most people think President Trumbell is bluffing, but our team leader, at least, doesn't seem to be one of them."
The reports the Research Center put out always analyzed both directions of every scenario. It was preparation for any eventuality. This report was one of those. Right now, not only in Yeouido but on Wall Street too, few people believed President Trumbell would actually wage a trade war with China.
But Kang Suho was looking through the opposite lens. No—he was quite plainly one hundred percent certain that Trumbell would pull the trigger on China.
"If a US–China trade war breaks out, world markets will shake. And then we bet on the side that's falling."
"Through a total return swap?"
"Right. We hand 10 billion won over to an outside securities firm as margin—not to our own Daeseong—and pull ten-times leverage."
TRS (Total Return Swap). A derivatives transaction in which, without ever purchasing the asset itself, you receive the profits and losses generated by that asset exactly as they are.
Put simply, it was a contract in which you deposited your 10 billion won as collateral, had the counterparty securities firm trade 100 billion won worth of stock on your behalf, kept every won of the profit that resulted, and paid interest and fees in return.
The catch: if the prediction missed and losses hit a set ratio, the position would be force-liquidated without mercy, and the principal could evaporate into thin air.
"Institutions trading TRS with one another is common enough, isn't it? The side receiving the trade hardly ever stands to lose anyway."
The securities firm lending the money was running a fee business. The returns were richer than one might think, which was why every firm on the street was selling TRS products.
And what if they lost the money they'd lent out? There was no need to worry about that. The moment a loss of even a sliver broke the margin maintenance ratio, if the counterparty failed to post additional funds, the firm could mechanically fire off a counter-trade and liquidate the position on the spot.
"And the securities firms rake in the sweetest fees off it. Our own Daeseong Securities is busily selling TRS products as we speak."
"But hardly anyone would readily hand over ten-times leverage, would they?"
"True enough. But it only looks sensational because the multiple is ten; the actual size of the operation is 100 billion won, isn't it? The big TRS deals run well past a trillion won. A hundred billion is a size they can comfortably digest."
A strategy of taking headquarters' paltry 10 billion, inflating it tenfold, and flipping the entire board. Just as Team Leader Song had said, it was an idea that looked insane from every angle.
"On top of that, Team Leader Kang seems to have known all along that things would come to this."
"He already knew?"
"He plucked just these two out of that enormous pile of proposals earlier, didn't he? How long did it take him? Five minutes or so?"
Now that she thought about it, it was uncanny. Without so much as a skim, he had picked these two out of the pile as if with a pair of tweezers.
"He must have already worked out how headquarters would play it and built his counter in advance."
"Then he should have given us a heads-up, shouldn't he? We could have put our heads together and wrestled with it as a team."
"And if the information leaked to headquarters in the meantime? He did handpick us, but I'd say it means he doesn't trust us one hundred percent yet."
"..."
Beneath his outward manner, Kang Suho was a man of chilling meticulousness and caution. Even with teammates he had chosen himself, he did not blindly open everything up. Just as Kang Suho himself had proven with overwhelming results, they, too, would have to earn recognition of their worth on their own. Through skill, and nothing less.
"Senior... do you think this will actually work? No matter how I run the numbers, the risk looks far too big to me."
"I think so too. But the team leader said something earlier, didn't he? That if we work hard and show results, headquarters will come around."
Anyone could see this was headquarters' naked obstinacy and high-handed abuse. For the man who understood that better than anyone to say such a thing so calmly could only mean one thing.
"It means he's confident. As if he could trample this little squeeze from headquarters underfoot whenever he pleased. And he said that too, didn't he? That this is practice—a chance to get in sync before we handle truly massive capital."
In other words, this 10 billion won was a passing episode, nothing more. A deep reverence for Kang Suho flickered through Team Leader Song's eyes.
"And there's one thing I've felt working with Team Leader Kang."
"And that would be?"
"When he says jump, we jump. No second-guessing."
"..."
Cheon Doa stared at the team leader, slack-jawed. Wasn't this the same pit bull who, true to his Delta One team leader title, had piled doubt upon doubt every time and calculated probabilities down past the decimal point?
"Senior. Weren't you the man who never tolerated an error of even 0.1 and only ever fought battles he was sure to win?"
Yet here was Song Jiwoon, standing before Kang Suho's bet, brandishing neither mathematical calculation nor risk hedging. Nothing but blind trust and faith.
"Because following Team Leader Kang looks like the highest-win-probability bet on the table."
It was the face of a zealot, as if he had fallen headlong into some cult.
What will my team members make of this?
Ten-times leverage. A mere 5 percent loss would send half the principal—5 billion won—vanishing into thin air, while a 5 percent gain would net 5 billion won. The so-called All or Nothing strategy. An all-in wager that Yeouido never, ever tolerated.
Then why had such proposals been submitted in the first place? Because by principle, market analysis reports of this kind were required to include extreme scenarios in both directions, along with derivative investment proposals.
But neither the employee who filed these proposals nor my team members had imagined for a second that I would actually pick them.
They're bound to oppose it tooth and nail, aren't they?
At the words "ten-times leverage," everyone had worn the expression of a soul leaving its body. Still, the proposals had to be reviewed, so the team had scattered to their desks with the documents in hand.
They would comb through the paperwork, analyze it, and then lay into me point by point, showing me exactly how far over the line this investment had stepped. This strategy, after all, was trampling even risk management—the most basic principle of any financial firm.
...
If my team members opposed it fiercely, how was I to handle it? My nose had picked these two proposals out for me, and despite the danger, I had conviction in this investment. But my being convinced and instilling the same faith in my team were two entirely different problems.
Should I push my will through like some lone tyrant? And what if, in the process, the team decided they couldn't possibly work with a lunatic like me and bolted en masse?
"Hoo. This seat really isn't an easy one."
Unlike my days as a bottom-rung employee, a team leader had far, far too many things to keep in mind.
Knock, knock—
"Team Leader. May we come in?"
Team Leader Song's voice came through the door. Right. If it couldn't be avoided, then I would crash into it head-on and talk them around. I finished hardening my resolve.
"Yes. Come in."
The door opened, and the team members filed in behind Team Leader Song. Their resolute expressions, edged with something like grim determination, made me a little nervous.
"Team Leader. To give you our conclusion first..."
I swallowed dryly.
"We are fully in favor of your plan."
"Yes. I thought as mu—... I'm sorry, what?"
For an instant, I doubted my own ears.
"Your bold decision to bypass headquarters' cap through a TRS deal with an outside securities firm and pull ten-times leverage—we will gladly follow it."
Team Leader Song continued in an unwavering voice.
"To that end, we've drawn up a shortlist of outside prime brokers we can contact immediately. We've also laid out a strategy for counterparty outreach and entry timing. Give us the confirmation, and we'll set up the deal at once."
I looked at Team Leader Song and the team members standing behind him. Every face was grave and burning, as if ready to hurl itself onto a battlefield that very moment.
...
It seemed I had underestimated my team members after all.
They were people even crazier than I was.