The Merchant and the Professor
Two days later, in a quiet teahouse in Seongbuk-dong.
Kim Jong-soo had arrived early and taken a seat in the corner, his throat dry with nerves.
So places like this existed after all.
It was the meeting spot Seon-woo had chosen, and the atmosphere was quietly pleasant. A teahouse run by Director Jung's younger sister, if he remembered right.
Nervous, am I...?
He had survived the curb-money market for decades. He'd shared tea with men who came at him with knives over unpaid debts, and traded barbed words all night with ex-prosecutor lawyers. But meeting a university professor? That was a first.
Seon-woo had told him not to hide anything—just be himself.
Easy for him to say...
The words sounded simple, but the more he turned them over, the harder they got. What did "being himself" even mean? Was he supposed to act the way he did in Myeongdong?
Then a wry laugh escaped him.
He decided that if that was all he had, then that was all he had. Fine. He'd be himself.
Ting-a-ling—
At the chime of the wind chime on the door, Kim Jong-soo turned his head.
A gray coat, a pair of glasses. The man walked with a straight, unhurried gait, scanned the room once, and on spotting Kim Jong-soo gave a slight nod as he approached.
"Chairman Kim Jong-soo, I presume?"
"That's right. You've come a long way."
"Not at all. I said I'd come early, and here I am late anyway. May I sit?"
"Please, make yourself comfortable."
Yoon In-chul took the seat across from him. He hadn't taken off his coat.
It was a small thing—but it was also the posture of a man who didn't intend to stay long.
"Shall I order you some tea?"
"That's quite all right."
A curt refusal. Kim Jong-soo smiled to himself.
Polite on the surface, guard never down. Thirty-plus years of reading people told him exactly what he was looking at.
"Then I suppose we should get straight to the point."
"By all means."
Yoon In-chul spoke first.
"I've heard from Mr. Kang Seon-woo. That you're preparing to acquire Shinsung Savings Bank."
"That's correct."
"And after the acquisition, what do you intend to do with the PF loans?"
Straight for the throat. No winding path, no preamble.
So he's not one for beating around the bush.
Kim Jong-soo found that refreshing. He'd grown sick to death of the circling, coiling men of Myeongdong.
"We'll have to shrink it."
His answer was just as short.
"You know better than I do what happens to a savings bank that piles everything into real estate. I've seen plenty of those men in Myeongdong myself—chasing one big win, ratcheting up the leverage, then losing everything."
"And specifically?"
"Project finance down below thirty percent of the loan book. The rest we'll rebuild around consumer finance for ordinary people."
Yoon In-chul's expression shifted, minutely. Not surprise—it was curiosity. He seemed to want to know where the answers he'd heard from Seon-woo ended and Kim Jong-soo's own answers began.
"Consumer finance means weaker returns."
"It does."
Kim Jong-soo answered evenly.
"But it doesn't go under. Earning small and steady—that's always been my way. Thirty years of doing it that way. I never chased one big score, so I never took one big loss either."
"Was it the same in Myeongdong?"
"It was the same in Myeongdong."
Yoon In-chul fell silent for a moment. He looked down at his teacup, then raised his head.
"Let me ask you honestly."
Kim Jong-soo met his eyes.
"You want to come up into the sunlight, don't you?"
The question was blunt, but Kim Jong-soo didn't so much as blink.
He had known this one was coming.
"Ha ha! Of course I do."
Not a shred of a lie in it.
"What moneylender wants to die a moneylender? With a banking license, I can move bigger money, and my cost of funds drops. As a businessman, there's no reason not to want it."
Yoon In-chul's eyes were studying him. Kim Jong-soo accepted the scrutiny and kept talking.
"For thirty years I've lent money and collected it. I've been stiffed, and I've gone hunting for men who stiffed me. It wasn't always clean."
He drew a breath and went on.
"But those were people with nowhere else to turn. Turned away by the banks, cut off by the card companies. The last door left open to them was mine."
It wasn't charity he felt. It was pride.
"I'll be honest with you—that project finance business you mentioned? I don't really understand it. What I do understand is the work I have to do."
Kim Jong-soo watched Yoon In-chul listening in silence, and continued.
"A man who moves money should stick to moving money. I know what happens when you get greedy for more than that. That's how I've survived thirty years on the Myeongdong pavement, fronting money for a living."
"......"
"I'm buying this savings bank to do the same thing, just bigger. No grand manifesto—just an extension of the work I've always done."
Yoon In-chul said nothing for a long while.
He was nothing like Jung Hyun-il of Jung Sung Construction.
That man had reached for other people's money to save his own skin.
The man across the table moved strictly within his own bowl.
They were both merchants. But the size of what they hungered for was different.
"...You really are a merchant, through and through."
"That I am. A merchant."
The answer came flat and unashamed. There was nothing to deny, and no call for false modesty.
Yoon In-chul's hand drifted to his coat buttons. He undid one and leaned back into his chair.
"I have one condition."
He looked Kim Jong-soo straight in the eye.
"If I oppose something at the board table, you stop."
A brief silence settled between them. Kim Jong-soo thought it over, then spoke slowly.
"Well now. I can't promise you that."
Yoon In-chul's gaze flickered.
"But I will trust you, Professor Yoon In-chul."
"......"
"All my life I've been the front-money man—putting up capital from behind. Out front, the lenders borrowed and collected."
Kim Jong-soo held the professor's gaze and made it unmistakable.
"That conviction hasn't changed this time either."
Yoon In-chul chewed on the words for a long time.
A man who promised easily was one thing, but a man who said he couldn't promise was the more honest of the two—and a man who understood the weight of a promise. A promise can be broken; a man's nature doesn't change so easily.
This man knew precisely what he was, and he didn't hide it.
That was enough.
"Very well."
"So you'll join me, then?"
At Kim Jong-soo's question, Yoon In-chul nodded and extended his hand.
"Ha ha ha! I look forward to working with you."
Kim Jong-soo laughed heartily and clasped the outstretched hand in both of his own.
"We've confirmed it."
Jung Sung Construction headquarters, the president's office.
The vice president started talking the moment he opened the door.
Jung Hyun-il didn't look up from his documents, merely waving a hand for him to sit.
"On the day of the Shinsung Savings Bank run, a large corporate deposit came in. From something called the Bukchon Investment Partnership—around 40 billion won."
Only then did Jung Hyun-il's eyes rise from the page.
"The Bukchon Investment Partnership?"
"Yes. We checked—it's a vehicle belonging to Kim Jong-soo."
Jung Hyun-il's fingers stopped on the armrest.
Forty billion. It looked like nothing on paper, but forty billion in the middle of a bank run was a different animal entirely. Depositors were lined up out the door pulling their money out—and into that maelstrom, someone had thrown in forty billion. It was as good as shouting to the whole market: this bank is not going down.
"And as of now, even with Shinsung in this state, the run has all but stopped. Every withdrawal request is being processed normally, so the panic seems to have subsided—and with Shinsung running high-rate special deposit offers, people are actually lining up to put money in."
Jung Hyun-il set down his documents and leaned back, slowly.
He had triggered the bank run to drive Park Han-soo to the edge of the cliff—and the old man had reached back, found a hand, and pulled himself up.
"Sir."
The vice president lowered his voice.
"Honestly, this bothers me. The nerve to put forty billion into a live bank run—someone like that doesn't just have money. Isn't he setting a board behind the scenes?"
It was a reasonable worry, but Jung Hyun-il's face said he wasn't listening.
"Or what—could Park Han-soo of Shinsung be planning to sell to Kim Jong-soo—"
"Hey, hey."
Jung Hyun-il looked at him with an expression of pure exasperation.
"This is why you'll never get anywhere. All you ever see is what's right in front of your nose."
"......"
"A moneylender put in forty billion. So? The run died down. So? What's any of that worth, in the end?"
Jung Hyun-il rose from his seat as he spoke.
"The acquisition only goes through with approval from the financial authorities. Kim Jong-soo can hoard all the money he wants—do you really think they'll hand a consumer finance institution over to a former curb-market front-money man? One question at a National Assembly audit and the official in charge loses his head."
The vice president closed his mouth.
It wasn't that there was nothing to counter with—but he knew that arguing a second time in front of this man was pointless.
"Different league entirely, so stop worrying. A curb-money lender versus the twentieth-largest chaebol in the country. It's obvious whose side the authorities will take."
Jung Hyun-il saw no cause for concern.
When Park Han-soo had flipped the table, he'd assumed the old man had landed some impressive backer—turns out it was just a loan shark.
"Contact Professor Yoon In-chul. Lock him down on our side, for certain."
"...Understood."
The vice president bowed his head and left, and Jung Hyun-il stretched, joints popping.
"Park Han-soo, no matter how you squirm, Shinsung was always going to end up in my hands."
Jung Hyun-il let out a thin, vicious smile.
"Let's see now..."
Early morning at the Ribbon Capital office.
Han Jae-yi had just clocked out after staying up all night tracking the US markets, leaving me alone in the office, standing in front of the whiteboard.
"All right. The board is set."
Kim Jong-soo had called yesterday. Professor Yoon In-chul had confirmed he was joining us.
In the center of the board I wrote CONSORTIUM, and drew three lines down beneath it.
Kim Jong-soo.
SJ Holdings.
Yoon In-chul.
"Bukchon is the money—the front-money man, in other words."
Kim Jong-soo puts up the capital. The de facto largest shareholder. But outwardly, he has to be nothing more than one investor among several. The moment his history as a curb-market front-money man comes to the surface, this becomes an acquisition the authorities can't explain.
"Yoon In-chul is the nameplate."
A former bank executive vice president turned university professor. If a public-facing expert who had openly warned about PF risk stood as CEO, then the Financial Supervisory Service had someone they could point to—an answer they could give.
But Yoon In-chul isn't bringing money. We can't offer him equity. The CEO title and management authority are his payment.
"And last, my side..."
My marker paused. At first I'd considered putting Ribbon in, but SJ Holdings felt right. This was the seat where my five percent would sit.
On paper, it was a corporation represented by Managing Director Kim Seok-jun—and the director was a man even the authorities trusted. Decades of serving the late Chairman had built him a network that ran deep.
"Kim Jong-soo's weakness is where he comes from. Yoon In-chul and Managing Director Kim Seok-jun are there to cover it."
So when the consortium stood before the FSS, this was the shape they'd see: a CEO who was a former bank executive turned professor, and a private investment consortium whose participating entities included even the establishment-friendly Kim Seok-jun. Kim Jong-soo's color got diluted; the "loan shark" label got buried.
While Jung Hyun-il thought he was winning the nameplate war, I'd be stacking the nameplates two layers deep.
"Next—the most important number. The acquisition price."
Shinsung Savings Bank: total assets of 1.2 trillion won. BIS ratio, 6.8 percent.
A savings bank's acquisition price isn't set on total assets—it's set on equity capital. At 6.8 percent BIS on 1.2 trillion in assets...
"Equity capital comes to roughly 80 billion won."
On top of that, you apply a multiple to net assets—but with a distressed bank that's just been through a bank run, attaching any premium would be difficult.
"It would've been different before the run."
Park Han-soo asking fifteen percent above market valuation—that was a pre-bank-run conversation. The situation had changed. The run had shaved down trust, and the FSS's recommended sale deadline was year's end. Park Han-soo's negotiating leverage wasn't what it used to be.
A healthy savings bank could command one times equity, up to 1.2 if lucky. But Shinsung—with PF at 42 percent of its book and bad loans piled on top—was another story. Zero point seven to zero point eight.
0.7 to 0.8 times 80 billion won in equity.
"Acquisition price: 60 billion. Cap it in the 70 billions even if a premium gets attached."
A number that was neither generous nor stingy. The lowest line Park Han-soo's pride could accept—and at the same time, a sum that wouldn't strain Kim Jong-soo.
Beneath it, I wrote out the equity structure.
"From Bukchon, 50 billion or more."
Kim Jong-soo fronts most of the money.
"My five percent goes in through SJ Holdings. Thirty billion or so should cover it."
With the work done, I capped the marker and took a step back.
Consortium structure, acquisition price, equity split. The numbers checked out. The logic held.
One thing remained.
"Park Han-soo."
I had to convince him to sell to us, not to Jung Sung. Numbers alone wouldn't do it—if Jung Sung simply bids higher, it's over. What moves Park Han-soo isn't money. It's trust.
I'd sooner close my doors than turn my bank into a construction company's cash line.
Park Han-soo wanted to sell to someone who would protect Shinsung.
Until now, everything had been setting the board from behind the scenes—moving Kim Jong-soo, drawing in Yoon In-chul, designing the consortium. But Park Han-soo was different. He was not a man you could win over with documents and numbers.
The eyes of a man who'd survived forty years in finance, in the end, look at people. That's what it always came down to.
One last line went on the board.
[Park Han-soo — Face-to-Face Meeting]
"Looks like it's my turn to meet him in person."