Kingmaker (6)
My remarks were practically an attack on the chaebols themselves.
Jin Gyuseok asked in an angry voice, “So you’re saying it doesn’t matter what happens to a company’s vision or the difficulties of running it, as long as you keep the stock price going up?”
“If you can’t raise the stock price, then why are you even running a business?”
“......”
I kept going. “A management failure is one thing, and that can at least be forgiven. But some executives go so far as to steal from their shareholders. That’s unforgivable.”
“You mean embezzlement and breach of trust?”
“Come on, that’s just petty theft.”
In Korea, embezzlement and breach of trust among chaebols were practically routine. Maybe the chairmen thought corporate money was just pocket change tucked into their own private purse, because they treated company funds as if they were their personal money, and it was only natural to spend it that way. The scale was on a different level, too; once someone got caught, it was always tens or hundreds of billions of won. At that point, it was hard to call it the problem of one individual or even one particular group, because almost none of the top ten conglomerates were clean.
GL Group was included in that, too.
At that point, I couldn’t tell whether the problem was the system or whether the punishment was simply too weak. At least this still counted as a crime, but there were plenty of legal ways to extort money from shareholders as well.
“Real theft looks like this. Since Jang Yuseon is here, let’s use Daeyeon Car as an example. The logistics company for Daeyeon Car is Genovus, and the advertising company is Liontion. Genovus is controlled by Vice Chairman Jang Hoseon, Chairman Jang Hisu’s eldest son, while Liontion is a firm whose largest shareholder is his eldest daughter, Executive Director Jang Hanna. If Daeyeon Car had handled logistics and advertising itself, the profits would have gone to Daeyeon Car’s shareholders. But instead, they created separate companies and funneled the work to them, which only made the chairman’s family richer. I hear Daeyeon Winner, where Jang Yuseon is the largest shareholder, is going public soon, so let me congratulate you in advance. That, too, is nothing more than stripping away profits that should have belonged to Daeyeon Car’s shareholders.”
Jang Yuseon bristled. “What did you say?”
I pretended not to hear her and turned back to Jin Gyuseok. “Shall we talk about Trinisel next? Trinisel entrusts the sales of its biotech and pharmaceutical products to TriniselHC. But the sales commission is so high that TriniselHC is effectively siphoning off Trinisel’s profits. That’s why the market undervalues Trinisel and overvalues TriniselHC. Can anyone possibly make a long-term investment if that kind of abnormal business relationship keeps going?”
Trinisel had been founded jointly by Chairman Jin Yong-ju and his colleagues, so its ownership stake was low, while the chairman’s family held a much larger share of TriniselHC.
When that became a problem, they had TriniselHC list on the stock market, and recently they had even been pushing for a merger between the two companies.
Jin Gyuseok frowned. “You’d better watch your mouth.”
“You’d better watch yours, too. Continue Capital is taking a close look at the merger ratio.”
That was no different from a warning that we could interfere with the merger at any time.
If Continue Capital decided to get serious, it would be impossible to set the merger ratio in a way that favored TriniselHC. Jin Gyuseok seemed to understand that, because he shut his mouth.
The people gathered here were all members of Korea’s most prominent chaebol families. Among them, how many could honestly say that their families were running their companies responsibly for the sake of shareholders?
I finally turned my eyes toward Go Hyeon-ji. When our eyes met, she shivered slightly.
Seeing that, I almost felt a protective instinct I didn’t even know I had, but I still decided to say my piece.
“Honestly, the worst of them all is GL Group. If what the other groups did was theft, then what GL Group has done recently is no different from highway robbery.”
Go Hyeon-ji’s eyes flew wide. “W-what do you mean by that?”
“Last year, GL Chemical performed a physical split-off of GL Entech, didn’t it? And this year, they’re planning to list it on the stock market. If that isn’t robbery, what is?”
She argued back as if pleading her case. “W-why is that highway robbery?”
“Once GL Entech goes public, GL Chemical’s stock price will take a hit. That’s the same as slapping the faces of the shareholders who trusted GL Chemical and invested in it all these years.”
Compared to the other chaebol groups, GL Group had a fairly positive public image. Unlike the others, who used every trick in the book to dodge military service, most of the men in GL Group had served. They hadn’t caused major social scandals, they paid their taxes properly, and they were active in all kinds of public-interest work, even supporting treatment costs for descendants of independence fighters and wounded veterans.
But...
“What’s the point of doing public service all day long if you’re going to extort tens of trillions of won from your shareholders like this?”
For a while, silence hung over the room.
Go Hyeon-ji was so shocked that her already pale face turned ashen and her lips went blue. Tears welled in her wide eyes, and her whole body began to tremble.
Up until now, nobody had ever said something like this to her face.
That was because only someone like me would dare.
Just as I was thinking that, Jang Yuseon shouted at me, “You bastard, have you finished talking? Apologize to Hyeon-ji right now!”
Who the hell was he to keep calling me this bastard and that bastard?
“I don’t want to.”
“What? You little punk!”
Jang Yuseon strode toward me.
Seeing him up close, I realized he was bigger than I was. For the record, his hobby was said to be fencing, which was why Daeyeon Winner sponsored the fencing events.
If it came to a straight fight, I’d lose, wouldn’t I?
I was just about to grab one of the flower vases on the table when Go Hyeon-ji shouted, “Stop it!”
At her cry, Jang Yuseon stopped in his tracks.
Go Hyeon-ji collapsed on the spot and buried her face in both hands, bursting into tears.
“Sob!”
In the quiet room, the only sound was Go Hyeon-ji crying.
At first I thought she was just putting on a loud show, but the tears were really dripping through her fingers.
In a low voice, I asked Sung Yoon-ah, “Is this because of me?”
She answered in a hollow voice, “It looks that way.”
“......”
I made a woman cry.
It was the first time since kindergarten—since I’d fought with a little girl and made her cry—that this had happened.
To twist one media outlet’s logic, if tears were evidence of being wronged, then crying instantly made you the victim.
Which meant this situation was completely against me.
Maybe I should’ve cried first.
When a problem comes up, the best move is to pin it on the other side right away.
After making up my mind in a hurry, I pointed at Jang Yuseon and shouted, “It’s because you were the one hurling insults that Hyeon-ji started crying! How are you going to take responsibility for this?”
He looked flustered. “What? No, this is—”
“You made a woman cry! What a rotten bastard!”
Then the crying Go Hyeon-ji lifted her head and looked at me as if she wanted to say something. Luckily, at that moment Min Ah-reum stepped in, took her in her arms, and comforted her.
“Oh no! Are you okay, Hyeon-ji? Don’t cry.”
Then she glared at us and shouted, “What do you two think you’re doing at Hyeon-ji’s birthday party? Get out of here right now!”
I left the party hall almost like a man being thrown out.
A little later, I met Sung Yoon-ah at a nearby café.
“How’s the party atmosphere?”
“Ruined, thanks to someone. It feels like everybody’s heading home.”
Was that “someone” supposed to be me?
“What about Min Ah-reum?”
“Unnie is comforting Hyeon-ji.”
Good. It was a relief that Min Ah-reum had stepped in.
Thanks to her chasing us out, the situation had been cleaned up so that it didn’t look like I’d made Go Hyeon-ji cry; instead, it looked as if the whole thing had just been a near-fight between the men.
I’d probably have to thank her later.
Sung Yoon-ah stared at my face for a moment, then suddenly burst out laughing. “Pfft!”
“What’s so funny?”
“Because it’s fun when I’m with Miru.”
“Well, I’m glad you think so.”
“But what were you thinking, doing that? Calling out the chaebols’ problems in a room full of chaebols.”
“They asked, so I answered. It’s not like I said anything wrong.”
“That’s true, but...”
That was exactly the problem—it was all true.
I hoped at least one of them had been moved enough to become a better manager, but... that wasn’t going to happen, was it?
“Hyeon-ji doesn’t seem like she’ll let this go.”
“I don’t care.”
Thinking about what I had to do next, I was never going to get on friendly terms with anyone from GL Group anyway.
I’d already laid out the plan in my head. The important thing now was how to execute it.
“Do you trust me, Yoon-ah?”
“Huh?”
The question came out of nowhere, and Sung Yoon-ah looked momentarily confused.
But then she nodded. “I-I do.”
“Good.”
Something in my tone must have tipped her off.
“Wait... are you planning something again?”
“Yes.”
If this worked, it would expose the chaebols’ problems in full, ugly detail.
And if I brought Assemblyman Namgung Seok into it, the entire nation would see that he had fought for justice.
Go Jae-ik, the president of GL Chemical, had married young and had two sons and one daughter.
His two sons were growing up into sturdy young men and learning the ropes of management, and he was proud of them, of course. But his greatest pride was his youngest daughter.
Beautiful as a baby, she only grew prettier as she got older.
Whenever something difficult came up, coming home early and playing with his daughter was enough to wash away his stress and fatigue.
He indulged her in whatever she wanted.
This time, when she said she wanted to invite her friends over and throw a birthday party, he made sure it was a proper one.
And yet...
After the party, Go Hyeon-ji stopped eating and drinking and flopped down in bed, crying every single day.
“Sob, sob... Do you even know what that bastard did to me? I was the laughingstock that whole day.”
Every man she had ever drawn close to had worked hard to win her favor. No matter how impressive they were, they all lowered themselves in front of her.
But Han Miru was different.
Not only had he ignored her, he had humiliated her in front of everyone.
“He called me a highway robber! Waaah!”
To be exact, he had called GL Group a highway robber, but to her, it was all the same.
She was the apple of his eye.
And when his precious daughter told him she had been humiliated by some bastard at her birthday party, flames practically shot out of his eyes. He wanted to march over there at once, grab the punk by the collar, and demand an explanation.
Han Miru?
It was a name he had obviously heard before.
“Do something about this. Dad, are you seriously okay with me being treated like this?”
If this had been done by someone from another chaebol family, he would have forced an apology out of them by any means necessary. But the other party wasn’t a chaebol. And yet he wasn’t an ordinary nobody, either.
“Calm down for now.”
“How am I supposed to calm down? I really can’t live like this.”
Go Jae-ik soothed his crying daughter.
But honestly, what bothered him more than the humiliation his daughter had suffered was something else entirely.
It was the content of Han Miru’s remarks at the party.
He said GL Entech’s listing was highway robbery?
GL Chemical had performed a physical split-off of GL Entech last year, and the company was now heading for an IPO.
Some analysts were even predicting that once it went public, it would leap straight to third place in the KOSPI by market capitalization. In other words, this was the largest listing in Korean stock market history so far.
It was no exaggeration to say that the future of GL Group itself was riding on it.
If anyone else had said such a thing, he wouldn’t have paid it much mind. But the fact that it was Han Miru who had said it was the problem.
As one of the heirs to one of the four major groups, Go Jae-ik knew the Hanjeong Group affair in considerable detail.
It was no exaggeration to say that Han Miru had practically set the stage for Hanjeong Group’s breakup.
Forming an alliance with Kim Sung-gwun and persuading Ju Hyeon-jin to hand over his proxy votes—those were all things he had done.
If not for Han Miru, Vice Chairman Ju Cheol-jin would never have lost control of the company.
And now that same Han Miru had suddenly started criticizing GL Entech’s listing.
What exactly is he trying to do by saying something like that?