Kingmaker (2)
Sometimes something strange happened in the Korean stock market.
Chaebol groups’ market caps would rise, the KOSPI’s total value would climb as well, and yet the index itself would not budge. Worse still, the stocks I held would be the ones falling.
When that happened, most people naturally assumed they had simply invested badly.
But there was one crucial secret hidden beneath it all, one the media and the securities firms never bothered to explain.
It wasn’t just a matter of individual investors lacking information or capital. The Korean market had been designed as a Korea Discount from the very beginning—a field tilted against you before the game even started.
Chairman Aaron Baker, the master investor, had once said, "In the long run, the economy rises. If you invest long term in quality companies, you will always earn a return."
But that was only true if companies actually grew the way they were supposed to.
If a manager siphoned profits elsewhere in the middle of that growth, then the economy’s expansion never translated into the company’s own value.
Korea was home to world-class companies that could stand alongside, and in some cases even surpass, those in many advanced European economies. And yet their stock prices never rose as much as they should have.
At the heart of it was managerial moral hazard.
And it wasn’t just a problem with the chaebol families. Even the founders who had built their companies from scratch did the same thing.
It was as if everyone had quietly agreed that this was just how things were done in Korea.
That was why long-term investing was so difficult here, and why it remained one of the root causes of the Korea Discount.
People had been pointing out the problem for years, but nobody could easily put a hand on it.
There had been bills to regulate holding companies and block circular shareholding, but there were always countless ways to slip through the cracks.
Namgoong Seok would later take the lead in trying to solve exactly that problem.
He argued that managers should serve their shareholders and proposed a number of bills, only to watch them fail every time at the legislative stage.
Colleagues who feared backlash from the business world opposed him. When it came to this sort of thing, there really was no difference between the ruling and opposition parties.
Passing a law to rein in the chaebol was never going to be easy.
When the economy was doing well, people would accuse you of tying the hands of hard-working companies. When the economy was bad, they would scold you for regulating instead of supporting them.
So what about this time?
I kept digging into the GL Group.
In the business hierarchy, GL Group ranked fourth, behind Yuseong, Daeyeoncha, and the LK Group.
Its market cap was still more than 70 trillion won behind the LK Group. But before long, it would overtake them and climb into third place.
I planned to connect that situation to Namgoong Seok and blow the whole thing wide open as much as possible. I wanted the entire country paying attention.
What I was trying to do was something that hadn’t existed in my first life.
That meant I had to plan carefully in advance.
In the middle of all that planning, a thought suddenly flashed through my mind.
Wait a second. If I pull this off...
At a dessert café in Apgujeong.
When I stepped inside, a woman lifted a hand toward me.
“Over here.”
I walked over and sat down across from her.
Her name was Sung Yoon-ah.
She had been my classmate back in my DA Securities days, and she was also the granddaughter of the chairman of the DA Financial Group. She seemed even prettier than I remembered.
“It’s been a while,” I said.
“Really. How long has it been?”
I had been back in Korea for quite some time, but the reason I was only meeting her now was that she had gone to London for training while I was still in the United States.
She had come back yesterday.
Sung Yoon-ah looked genuinely happy to see me, and I was pretty sure my expression was about the same.
“How was the training?”
“Honestly? I did nothing but study.”
“You’re working yourself too hard.”
“I’m not as talented as Miru, so I figure I’d better at least work harder.”
I waved a hand dismissively.
“Come on, what talent? I don’t have anything like that.”
I had only regressed. Talent was the one thing I had in painfully short supply.
If anything, wasn’t she more talented than I was?
“You say that, but people like you are what kids these days call talent monsters.”
I snorted.
“Pfft.”
The laugh escaped before I could stop it.
“Why are you laughing?”
“No, it’s just funny hearing you say kids these days. From where I’m standing, you’re the one who’s ‘kids these days.’”
“Then are you one of the kids these days too?”
“Not me.”
“You’re only two years older than I am.”
“Two years is a lot. When I was an adult, you were still a minor.”
“Tsk. What kind of argument is that?”
In fact, if you counted the regression, the gap was more than ten years.
Before I went back, I’d already reached the age where people started treating me like a middle-aged man. There were even customers at the fried chicken shop who called me ajusshi.
I never gave those punks an extra puffed rice snack after that.
“You seem to have had a lot of interesting things happen in the meantime. Tell me about them.”
“What do you want to hear about? Should I tell you about going to Blackwood headquarters? The FBI and NSA investigators were there too...”
I was just about to go into detail about my exploits when Sung Yoon-ah changed the subject.
“The chairman’s escape from Samara.”
“...That had nothing to do with us.”
“Then why did you go to Japan at the time?”
“I went sightseeing to take advantage of Japan Travel Week.”
We had kept in touch here and there, and somewhere along the way I’d mentioned that I was in Japan.
It probably had been a bad idea to say that.
“Hmm. Funny timing. Just when you happened to go on vacation, Chairman Samara happened to escape.”
“I was shocked when I saw the news later, too.”
“Stop lying and tell me the truth. How did you do it? You didn’t actually help him escape, did you?”
“...”
This was what happened when a good person got misunderstood.
I was trying to figure out how to wriggle out of it when Sung Yoon-ah’s phone rang.
“Excuse me for a second.”
She took the call, spoke briefly, and hung up.
“Who was it?”
“Ah-reum unnie.”
“Min Ah-reum?”
“Yes.”
She was the daughter of Chairman Yoo Hye-kyung of the Shinsegi Group, and also the younger cousin of Chairman Yoo Jae-ho.
“What’s going on?”
“She said there’s a birthday party for Hyeon-ji today.”
“Who’s Hyeon-ji?”
“Go Hyeon-ji. She’s Chairman Go Bon-seung’s granddaughter from the GL Group.”
“Ah!”
“You know her?”
“I’ve heard of her. She’s famous.”
Even from an analyst’s perspective, I didn’t know every name in the chaebol families, unless they were group chairmen or executives of major affiliates.
Still, there was a reason I remembered Go Hyeon-ji’s name.
She was beautiful.
From the days of the first chairman, Go Cheol-seung, the people of GL Group had been known for being handsome and beautiful. Maybe that was why every generation afterward seemed to be filled with beauties and heartthrobs.
Among them, the most famous for her looks was Go Hyeon-ji, the youngest daughter of President Go Kang-hwa.
She was so well known that even though she wasn’t a celebrity, stock-market rumor sheets used to gossip about who she was dating.
“Are you close with her?”
“We’re the same age, so we just know each other casually.”
From the look on her face, Sung Yoon-ah seemed a little reluctant.
“So you’re not very close.”
“Not really.”
“Why not?”
She answered carefully.
“I’m not talking behind her back or anything.”
“The fact that you say it like that makes it sound exactly like talking behind her back. I love gossip, so go on.”
Sung Yoon-ah shot me a look, then said, “It’s hard to explain, but she’s the type who gets exhausting to be around. Wherever she goes, she has to be the center of attention, and if things don’t go her way, she can’t stand it. Ah, but that doesn’t mean she has a bad personality or anything. She just doesn’t match with me.”
I thought I had a rough idea of the type she meant.
“Well, not everyone is going to be a good fit. So, are you going?”
“No, I don’t have to. I’m sure there are plenty of other people going.”
“Min Ah-reum is going, right?”
“She keeps up friendly relations with everyone.”
“For client management at the department store and duty-free shop?”
“Something like that.”
A birthday party for the granddaughter of the GL Group chairman.
For a coincidence, it felt strangely timely.
If this had happened on any other day, I probably wouldn’t have cared. But since I happened to be researching GL Group, my curiosity was piqued all at once.
Shouldn’t I at least go as part of my background research?
“Still, it’s a birthday party. We should go and congratulate her.”
“Huh?”
“If possible, I’d like you to take me along too.”
“You?”
“Yeah. I’m curious how chaebol birthday parties are held. Would that be a problem?”
“It wouldn’t be a problem, but...”
Sung Yoon-ah trailed off, then narrowed her eyes at me.
“Hold on. Don’t tell me you’re only saying this because you want to see Hyeon-ji.”
I waved my hands.
“Nope.”
“Like hell. You said she’s a beauty, so that means you do want to see her.”
It seemed like she was misunderstanding me, so I answered firmly.
“I think a person’s heart should be more beautiful than their face.”
“My mom always says the people who care most about looks are the ones who say things like that.”
“Ah! Of course I look at the face too. I’m just saying the heart should be more beautiful than the face. I’m not saying it’s okay for someone to be ugly.”
“...”
So, regrettably, I had never quite managed to connect with Kim Song-i, the daughter of my mother’s friend’s friend.
Still, I figured she would meet someone much better than me.
Since I had plenty of time, I stopped by a boutique first and bought clothes. I picked up the slacks, blazer, and shoes Sung Yoon-ah recommended.
“How do I look?”
“It suits you.”
“Compared to what I had on earlier?”
“...”
Weren’t those the exact same clothes I’d had on earlier?
In the end, after more than an hour of trying things on and taking them off, she bought the tweed dress she had put on first.
Then why had we bothered trying on everything else?
Either way, once we had dressed properly and even fixed our hair, we got into the car and headed to the venue where the birthday party was being held.
A lounge bar on an upper floor of a mixed-use building in Seongsu-dong.
The GL Group granddaughter’s birthday party was being held here, in a two-floor venue with glass walls looking out over the Han River and Seongsu Bridge.
I’d heard the whole place had been rented and decorated just for today’s party.
Inside, a crowd of young men and women had already gathered.
There were around a hundred of them, mostly in their twenties and thirties. According to Sung Yoon-ah, they were all children of prominent families in politics, business, and the media.
It was a strange feeling.
While I had been fighting with idiots in PC cafés who asked after my parents like it was some kind of sport, the children of the well-off had been spending their time like this.
Sung Yoon-ah called Min Ah-reum.
“I’m here, unnie.”
A moment later, a woman in a silk blouse and slacks walked over to us.
I knew her too.
“Hello,” I said.
Min Ah-reum brightened when she saw me.
“Oh! Miru, you came too.”
“Hello.”
“I didn’t expect to run into you here. It’s good to see you.”
She seemed genuinely pleased, because she grabbed my hand and shook it vigorously.
She was as lively as ever.
“I heard from Oppa that you were back in Korea. You should have called.”
“I figured you’d be busy.”
“Please. No matter how busy I am, if Miru calls, I make time. So, how do I look today?”
That out of the blue?
At times like this, the answer had to come quickly.
“Your hairstyle looks nice.”
“I’ve been thinking about growing my hair out lately,” she said.
“Really? I think a bob suits you better, personally.”
“Oh? Really? Then I guess I’ll have to hold off.”
Sung Yoon-ah cut in. “What about Hyeon-ji?”
“She hasn’t arrived yet.”
“It’s her own birthday party.”
“You know how it is. The star of the show always shows up late.”
“Still the same, I see.”
Just then, the chandeliers overhead suddenly went dark.
Staff members rolled in a massive cake cart with lit candles stuck into it and brought it to the center of the room.
One by one, the lights came back on, and a woman appeared on the staircase at the center of the second floor. The crowd let out a collective gasp.
When I saw the woman in a pale pink off-shoulder long dress, her hair swept high and elegantly pinned up, I was genuinely taken aback.
Seeing her in person, I understood it at once.
This wasn’t a case of flattering photos.
Go Hyeon-ji was truly stunning.
With her small face, long arms and legs, flawless skin, huge eyes, long lashes, and a forehead that was neither too broad nor too narrow, she looked almost unreal.
If she walked into a plastic surgery clinic, wouldn’t the doctor just stand there for a long time, thinking about what to do, before eventually sending her back out the door?
She wasn’t the darling of the business world for nothing.
As birthday music played, she walked down the stairs, bowed her head in greeting, and then blew out the candles.
“Happy birthday, Hyeon-ji!”
“Happy birthday!”
“Happy birthday to you!”
The guests celebrated her with applause and cheers.
The chandeliers came back on, and the crowd broke into small groups to eat and chat.
I lightly clinked my champagne glass and asked, “Have you ever had a birthday party like this, Yoon-ah?”
At my question, Sung Yoon-ah shook her head firmly.
“No. Even if someone paid me to do it, I’d never have one.”