What Belongs to Others
Ten minutes earlier.
Kim I-su’s face as he headed toward Haesol Textile was a mess of anger and disbelief.
“What, do they think that because they’re collaborating with us on production, they’re on our level or something?”
At his grumbled remark, Park Ji-woo, the head of the materials management department sitting in the passenger seat, added a word of his own.
“They’re insane. They’ve lost their minds. But do you really need to go yourself, sir? I can handle it.”
“Forget it. I handled the contract negotiations myself, so I should see them through to the end. And that guy isn’t ordinary. If you could have solved it, he wouldn’t have been so damn stubborn in the first place.”
Under normal circumstances, he would have sent Park Ji-woo in to deal with it.
But Kim I-su knew what had happened at the Seoul Fashion Week trade show, when Taesung Apparel’s executive director Kim Ho-yeol had been left utterly stunned.
Assuming the testimony of the Motion-X brand employees who had been on-site was true, then the man who had caused that shock, CEO Jung Seung-hyun, had been faced with the consequences of his own actions and yet had looked utterly unconcerned.
Kim I-su remembered that clearly, and so he believed sending Park Ji-woo would not settle anything.
There was a reason he had come all the way out to the subcontractor’s factory himself.
“Damn it... they said it was great, and now that’s come back to bite us.”
Kim I-su clicked his tongue and frowned.
Thanks to the showmanship on display at the trade show, the buyers and all the other people involved had clearly been made aware that the Motion-X fabric was something genuinely innovative.
That was why Hanil Global had placed such high projected sales figures on the Aero Coolbreeze fabric.
And yet Haesol Textile, the very company that had driven that sales growth, was now saying it couldn’t produce any additional fabric. What kind of irony was that?
This was their chance to completely crush VEANT from Taesung Apparel, and there was no way they could lose it over a shortage of fabric.
With that determination, willing to do whatever it took to secure the supply he wanted, Kim I-su stormed into Haesol Textile and marched toward the distant figure of Seung-hyun, already raising his voice.
“CEO!”
But as he drew closer, something felt wrong.
The face of the white man standing beside Jung Seung-hyun looked far too familiar.
If this had been any other time, he would have taken his time, calmed down, and remembered who the man was, but this was not a situation where he had that luxury.
So Kim I-su, intending to seize the initiative with a sharp reprimand and then move the discussion into the CEO’s office for a proper round of renewed negotiation, only realized much later who the man was.
On top of that...
“An... investment due diligence?”
What exactly was being due-diligenced by whom?
The LVMH Group was the world’s largest luxury conglomerate, with more than seventy-five high-end brands under its umbrella.
In fashion leather goods it owned Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Givenchy, among countless others; in jewelry it held Bulgari and Tiffany; and it even owned wines such as Dom Pérignon.
Its global revenue exceeded 70 billion euros, roughly 100 trillion won.
In other words, it was a true emperor of fashion, on a scale Hanil Global could never hope to compare with.
For such a company to be conducting investment due diligence on a place like Haesol Textile...
In plain terms, it meant they saw the potential for Haesol Textile to become a luxury house on the level of Givenchy or Celine in the future.
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“...”
What was he supposed to say?
For a moment, he couldn’t decide on a single thing, and simply shut his mouth.
He had come ready to bark at CEO Jung Seung-hyun and tell him to stop wasting time on making that filthy fabric and focus on Aero Coolbreeze, but the second those words left his lips, he would become an idiot in front of LVMH.
An awkward stalemate settled in as they stared at one another, and after a while, CEO Jung Seung-hyun spoke.
“If you have something you’d like to say, would you mind waiting in the CEO’s office for a moment? As you can see, we’re in the middle of something important.”
Kim I-su, who had rushed over intending to demand, “What could possibly be more important than this?” because production targets hadn’t been met, now had no choice but to keep his mouth shut and walk toward the CEO’s office.
After that, the due diligence continued as though nothing had happened.
They examined the machinery, the facilities, and especially the process for producing Art Fabric, going over the various patterns woven into the cloth in detailed exchanges with Seung-hyun.
The concrete, practical back-and-forth about what philosophy and what sensibility would guide the company, and how it would be built from here, would have put Seung-hyun in a difficult position if he hadn’t prepared for it in advance.
By around the afternoon, after reviewing the machinery and the documents prepared by Vice President Hwang Seok-jae, they finished their work and left Haesol Textile in a clean sweep.
“We’ll review everything and contact you next week once the details are set. It seems we’ll soon be family.”
As he departed, Gabriel Moreau acted as if the investment had already been finalized.
“Then I’ll look forward to your call.”
Smiling as he saw off the LVMH investment review team, Seung-hyun headed to the CEO’s office.
Park Han-soo, who had once seemed as though he would tremble before Hanil Global, was surprisingly calm as he led the way.
“You’ve been waiting a long time, haven’t you?”
As Seung-hyun, the factory manager, and Vice President Park entered, Kim I-su and the materials management staff who had come with him rose with unwilling expressions.
“That’s our fault for not notifying you in advance.”
“Please, have a seat.”
Before Kim I-su’s group had even sat down, Seung-hyun dropped into the seat of honor and asked, “Vice President, is your visit perhaps about the Aero Coolbreeze delivery issue?”
“...”
He wiped the sweat from his brow and worked his lips. Under normal circumstances, he would have whipped out the documents at once and shaken them, demanding compensation if they couldn’t meet the 60,000-yard quota by the end of April.
Of course, even those documents were nothing more than a cooperative production contract between Haesol Textile and Hanil Global, with no clause anywhere stating that Hanil Global had to be supplied with as much material as it wanted within a set period.
If such a clause had existed in the first place, Seung-hyun would never have signed it, and brand contractors never drafted contracts that could be one-sidedly disadvantageous to one party.
Even without it written in the contract, they could still pressure the other side with the implication that if you didn’t give me work, you would go under, so you’d better listen to me.
But after witnessing LVMH, a luxury conglomerate, conducting due diligence on Haesol Textile, he had been forced to realize once more that this company was not merely a “small textile factory,” and that left him uncertain what position he should even take.
“Our golf wear line, Motion-X, requested additional quantities. That much is public knowledge. I came because I was worried whether we could still meet the delivery schedule.”
“Yes, we received the official notice as well, but as I said before, even running the factory at full three-shift capacity only gets us to around 50,000 yards. Sixty thousand is physically impossible.”
Seung-hyun’s voice never wavered. Kim I-su failed to respond in turn, and an awkward silence spread.
“...”
Only after a long moment did he wave a hand.
“Let’s look into it a little more, CEO of Haesol Textile. I’m sure we at Hanil Global also know the situation is urgent, so let’s check again whether there’s truly no spare line at all...”
“I’m sorry, but we truly have no spare line. And we can’t create one, either. At present, the lines not producing Aero Coolbreeze are making Art Fabric, and those orders are tied to the LVMH Group.”
Kim I-su’s pupils wavered.
He had expected as much, but hearing it directly made him fully realize that this company was no longer merely an OEM subcontractor in the textile industry.
It was only a small business, yes, but if they pressed too hard, they might end up provoking LVMH. If rumors spread through the overseas luxury market that Hanil Global was bullying its partners, the fallout could be difficult to bear.
“There’s nothing for it, then. I understand for now. I’ll go back and discuss it internally. ...And about that LVMH investment... did Haesol Textile ask for it?”
Kim I-su lowered his voice slightly on the last question.
It was humiliating to ask, but he still wanted to know whether Haesol Textile’s growth potential had really been confirmed.
“They made the proposal first.”
The answer was brief, but to Kim I-su it landed like a heavy blow.
He only nodded and concluded that, for now, he had to withdraw.
Kim I-su, who had come to deliver an ultimatum in person, left without achieving a thing, right there in front of the employees who had been watching.
Watching the Hanil Global group leave with their shoulders slumped, Park Han-soo said, his eyes strangely unfocused, “My goodness... In all the years I’ve worked in this business, I’ve never even heard of a contractor backing down like that after not being able to get a single word in.”
“I’m a bit puzzled myself.”
Seung-hyun tilted his head as he looked out the window at the sedan carrying Kim I-su leaving the company parking lot.
Even if LVMH had decided to invest, it was hard to understand why they had backed off so meekly.
But he soon cleared the thought from his mind and said, “Let’s focus on our own work.”
“Understood. Everyone’s going to be buzzing with energy after this.”
Park Han-soo grinned like a fool, his mouth stretched wide.
That was how bright the company’s future seemed to him.
*
Hanil Global headquarters.
At 3 p.m., five executives gathered in the conference room on the top floor of the Hanil Global Tower in Gangnam.
At the head of the table sat Hanil Global president Jeong Man-sik, staring straight ahead with a stiff expression.
Kim I-su opened his documents and began his report.
“To get straight to the point, we confirmed that Haesol Textile cannot supply 60,000 yards by the end of April.”
President Jeong Man-sik glanced over the report, then tossed it aside and said, “Set that aside. Why are they investing?”
That was it.
This was the reason Kim I-su had withdrawn so helplessly after seeing LVMH’s investment review.
Because he had been forced to report to his superiors that a gem that might have been in his own hands had not been recognized by anyone else until now.
He still hadn’t decided whether to steal that gem or smash it, so how was he supposed to threaten anyone?
“It seems LVMH became interested because of something called Art Fabric. Put it on the screen.”
A staff member brought up a sofa on the display.
A sofa and cushions with a refined, old-world feel, their fabric rendered in bold black-and-white ink-painting patterns.
“That’s why? Hmm... Did it give them the same feeling as looking at a European royal design?”
Brand Strategy Director Kang Ho-yoon said.
“There is definitely a feeling to it. I’d have to see it in person, but it’s clearly something we haven’t seen before.”
Even though his face was displeased, President Jeong Man-sik faced reality with a cold eye.
“A Korean might not feel much from it, but a foreigner could get a powerful impression from it. But you didn’t know about this?”
Kim I-su broke into a cold sweat.
Checking what technology a subcontractor had and what it was doing was basic, the absolute basics.
Of course, there were no office workers who managed to stick to all the basics.
There were far too many things to do and never enough hours in the day; how could anyone follow every rule to the letter?
The skill of competent workers was knowing what to keep, what to let slide, and what to move past.
Unfortunately for him, a bomb had gone off in exactly this situation, and he had nothing to say for himself.
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t know? So you just thought, ‘They can make Aero Coolbreeze, so let’s sign the contract and not bother checking what else the factory is producing or how much it can make’?”
“...I’m sorry.”
Kim I-su couldn’t lift his head.
Fuck, do I seriously have to keep track of whether they’re making sofa fabric too?
He cursed inwardly, but his expression remained that of a man forever condemned.
“Did you perhaps fight with them?”
“No, sir! We had a good... discussion, and then withdrew.”
Kim I-su jerked his head up in alarm.
“So you pulled the cup back, but didn’t spill it...”
President Jeong Man-sik, who had been deep in thought while tapping the massive conference table, suddenly stopped moving.
At the moment everyone’s attention fixed on him, he said, “That Gabriel Moreau fellow, remember?”
“Yes.”
“Set up a meeting. I need to see him.”