This Is the Opportunity
Lee Tak-hyeon’s roar filled the space.
“You’re the Vice Chairman and you still can’t tell what’s what? You could have waited until the man finished speaking before opening your mouth. You couldn’t even manage that? And of all places—to put on that kind of display at the regular presidents’ meeting. What do you think the presidents of the other affiliates will make of it?”
Under the scolding, Lee Mun-jong kept his head slightly bowed and muttered without realizing it.
“They’re just servants living off our money anyway……”
“What?”
“Nothing, sir.”
Lee Mun-jong jerked his head up at once.
“I was wrong. From now on I’ll be more careful about how I conduct myself.”
He knew the fastest way out of this room was a swift apology and a show of contrition. Even though the whole thing still sat wrong with him, he tried to smother it with words of regret.
Lee Tak-hyeon understood that attitude perfectly well. Still, an apology had been offered on the surface, and he could not keep berating the man forever.
“Fine. Then……”
Just as he moved to close the matter, Kim Seong-ho approached the two of them.
“Chairman.”
Lee Tak-hyeon stopped mid-sentence at the sight of the newcomer. Kim Seong-ho came to stand beside Lee Mun-jong and spoke in his defense.
“Please don’t scold Hyungnim too harshly. From his point of view, the acquisition of Doa Motors must have seemed more important than anything else. I agree that we ought to acquire Doa Motors as well. It’s simply that the timing differed from what he had in mind, so our opinions diverged.”
Kim Seong-ho tossed fresh wood onto a fire that had been dying down.
Lee Mun-jong felt an urge to shove the man out of the room and tell him the conversation was already finished. Yet he watched Lee Tak-hyeon’s expression shift the moment the words “Doa Motors” left Seong-ho’s mouth, and he could not bring himself to drive him away. After all, he believed Seong-ho had come for his sake.
“Yes—Doa Motors…… Let’s hear it. Why were you so frantic about acquiring it earlier?”
“No, I……”
The matter had nearly ended; restarting it left Lee Mun-jong faintly uneasy. Still, the subject was already open, so he answered.
“Head Kim says the same thing, doesn’t he? That we should acquire Doa Motors. That was my thinking as well. If only, when Chairman Kim of Doa came asking for help, we had steered the conversation toward acquisition instead…… I can’t help feeling we might have taken the company at a better price.”
“You’re saying we should have made the acquisition offer first?”
“Yes.”
Once the words began to flow, confidence seemed to rise in him. Lee Mun-jong nodded and raised his voice.
“If we had stepped in aggressively with an acquisition proposal while Doa Motors was in deep crisis, Chairman Kim would not have been able to refuse outright.”
He carefully watched Lee Tak-hyeon’s silent face and pressed on.
“If we had named three trillion. No—two point five trillion? Roughly that figure…… Don’t you think Chairman Kim would have accepted?”
“Two point five trillion?”
Lee Tak-hyeon turned his gaze on Kim Seong-ho, the look asking what he made of the proposal. Lee Mun-jong was looking at Seong-ho as well, though with an entirely different meaning.
Help me.
Kim Seong-ho read the plea, offered Mun-jong a smile that promised assistance, and spoke to the Chairman.
“As I said a moment ago, I also agree in principle with the acquisition of Doa Motors.”
“There—you see? Head Kim agrees as well.”
Lee Tak-hyeon frowned at the way Mun-jong cut in again without waiting.
“Where did you put the words I just spoke to you?”
“This is in front of Head Kim, isn’t it? It’s different from the presidents’ meeting. Head Kim is family.”
Lee Mun-jong laid a hand on Kim Seong-ho’s shoulder, patted it once, and smiled toward his father. The expression only deepened Lee Tak-hyeon’s scowl. Seong-ho watched the furrowed brow and opened his mouth again.
“I agree in principle, but I still believe it would be wiser to wait a little longer.”
The head of the man whose hand rested on Seong-ho’s shoulder snapped around. He had expected only support; the added caveat displeased him.
“Wait for what?”
Even in front of Lee Tak-hyeon the tone was sharp. Kim Seong-ho continued as if he had not noticed, precisely as he had planned.
“There are rumors, after all.”
“Rumors? What rumors? Ah—the ones about it going under?”
Lee Mun-jong gave a hollow laugh of pure disbelief and turned to his father.
“Father, look at this. This is exactly why I react so strongly. To correct this kind of mentality, something stronger and more aggressive is required.”
Having justified his earlier outburst, he faced Seong-ho once more.
“Listen, Head Kim. No—Seong-ho.”
He gripped the younger man’s shoulder.
“In business there are times for caution, but there are also times when you have to move boldly. Do you really think Doa Motors will go under?”
“Starting with Dubo, Seongro and Haechi all went under, didn’t they?”
“You think they’re in the same league as Doa Motors? Come on……”
Lee Mun-jong shook his head and appealed again to Lee Tak-hyeon.
“See? This is what I’m dealing with. How am I supposed to stay calm? That’s why I looked urgent at the presidents’ meeting.”
Lee Tak-hyeon regarded him with open distaste.
“So you’re saying this is not a time for caution but a time for bold action?”
“Exactly.”
“When Chairman Kim came, we should have offered roughly two point five trillion and taken Doa Motors?”
“Yes. Precisely that.”
The longer the talk continued, the more Mun-jong doubled down on the righteousness of his own conduct.
“We may have already missed the best opportunity.”
“Haha.”
Lee Tak-hyeon laughed as if the claim were absurd.
Just as Mun-jong prepared to press the point further, Chief of Staff Hwang Do-beom came running. Confirming that no one else stood with the Chairman besides Mun-jong and Seong-ho, he reported at once.
“Chairman. News through the secretariat.”
Still wearing the scowl Mun-jong had earned him, Lee Tak-hyeon asked,
“What is it? Why do you look so urgent?”
“Chairman. Doa…… has gone bankrupt.”
“What?”
“Hyungnim—what did you just say?”
Shock wiped both faces clean. Only Kim Seong-ho remained composed.
Hwang Do-beom laid out the information the secretariat had gathered.
“Approximately two hundred eighty billion won in bills presented at the West Yeouido branch and other offices of Jaei Bank—Doa Motors’ main bank—have been finally processed as bounced. Doa Motors has acknowledged the default. Jaei Bank has convened the creditors’ group to decide what to do with the company.”
“Doa Motors…… has gone bankrupt?”
Lee Mun-jong stared at Hwang as if the words simply could not be true. Hwang nodded in understanding.
“Yes. I was stunned myself. For all its troubles, Doa Motors is still a top-ten name…… Honestly, Head Kim was right earlier. Putting off the acquisition was the correct call. If we had taken it, we would have been in serious trouble.”
He actually shuddered at the thought. Lee Tak-hyeon gave a short laugh at the sight and turned on his heel.
“Now’s the opportunity?”
The muttered words left Hwang looking blank. He had just reported a bankruptcy—why “opportunity”? He had not been present for the earlier exchange and could make no sense of it.
Before he could ask, Lee Tak-hyeon was already moving. Without so much as a glance he gestured toward Kim Seong-ho standing behind him.
“Head Kim, with me.”
“Yes, Chairman.”
He did not even check whether Seong-ho followed. Seong-ho answered, offered Lee Mun-jong a slight bow of the head, and strode after the Chairman.
Left alone outside the conference room, Lee Mun-jong stood empty-eyed and whispered to himself.
“Doa…… really went under?”
The memory of the bold claims he had just made in front of his father slammed into him. He clutched his head with both hands.
“Ugh!”
His face burned crimson with the shame of his own earlier confidence.
The Doa Motors bankruptcy shock crashed over the market.
It was the first collapse among the top ten groups, a colossal event with financial-institution debt alone exceeding ten trillion won. News broadcasts and newspapers poured out Doa Motors stories day after day. With the presidential election only weeks away, even campaign coverage was being buried beneath the bankruptcy.
On the day Kim Seong-ho and Lee Gyeong-eun left Pyeongchang-dong, the news was still running.
Click.
The screen went black. Lee Gyeong-eun had walked in without a sound and killed the picture with the remote.
“Lunatic.”
She muttered the curse under her breath while staring at the dark set. Kim Seong-ho rose from his seat with a quiet laugh.
“Gyeong-eun, I didn’t know you knew how to swear.”
A faint flush touched her cheeks. She wrinkled her nose and faced him.
“How absurd does something have to be before a word like that leaves my mouth?”
She glanced once more at the dead screen.
“Today is moving day, and I was in meetings until dawn. Then I have to listen to someone claim none of this matters. Of course I’m angry. People like him are exactly why the crisis only gets worse—don’t you think?”
Kim Seong-ho nodded and looked down at the newspaper he had been reading before the broadcast began. The pages insisted that even though Doa Motors had gone bankrupt, the damage to the Korean economy would be limited. Like the research director, the press filled its columns with the claim that there was no crisis at all.
Yet in a corner of the same paper, printed so small it was easy to miss, sat the news that the exchange rate had broken one thousand won and the stock index had fallen through seven hundred points.