GL Chemical (5)
Why had an article like this come out in the first place?
The piece had first been written by Min Hong-soo, a reporter for News Trigger. He was the man who had exposed the bribery allegations involving the K-Culture Foundation during the Hanjeong Group scandal. When I dug into it back then, the source of the tip had looked very much like Han Miru.
Could it really have been him?
It was unbelievable.
Why would he go after an innocent man like this?
Then something else came to me.
Could this be revenge for the Financial Supervisory Service raid last time?
It was the sort of thing only a madman would do... and yet, somehow, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Han Miru might really do it.
Either way, if I just sat still, I’d end up taking the fall.
If I didn’t want that, I had to get out in front of it and explain myself.
Blue House: There was never any favoritism toward the chaebols.
The National Pension Service’s exercise of voting rights was simply a decision made by the Fund Management Headquarters.
Blue House spokesperson: We will respond firmly to the spread of malicious falsehoods.
The Blue House’s spokesperson and even the senior public relations secretary came forward to rebut News Trigger’s report point by point.
In truth, if you looked closely, it was nothing more than a story stitched together to sound convincing. There was no real evidence.
But no one believed the Blue House’s explanation.
President Oh Young-hwan was furious beyond reason.
In his frustration and outrage, he shouted to himself.
“That’s not true! This time I really didn’t take a single won!”
Unless you were a GL Chemical shareholder or someone who followed stocks closely, the GL Entech listing issue wasn’t much of a concern.
But once the article appeared claiming that the president had taken bribes and handed out favors, it stopped being just a corporate matter and became a national issue.
Because of this, the argument that companies’ post-split listings should be banned, or at least that subsidiary listings should be restricted, gained real momentum, and all eyes turned to Rep. Namgoong Seok, who had been raising his voice in support of legislation for years.
By contrast, Representative Im Chang-sik, who had staked his position on corporate self-regulation, found himself in an awkward spot.
Ah, damn it. If I’d known it would turn out like this, I would’ve said we’d regulate it by law too.
But it wasn’t as if he could simply reverse the party line he’d set only days ago.
So Im Chang-sik kept pushing the line of caution.
“If corporate self-regulation proves insufficient, we will supplement it through legislation.”
The GL Entech listing was the single most important part of GL Group’s future strategy.
Once it was complete, GL Group would leapfrog the LK Group and become the third-largest conglomerate in the country overnight.
They had already finished the preliminary listing review and submitted the securities registration statement, and were now in the process of conducting institutional investor demand forecasting.
In practical terms, all the major hurdles to the listing had already been cleared.
Under normal circumstances, it would have been a quiet and routine debut.
But then... Continue Capital raised objections and declared its short position, and that made the public aware of just how badly a post-split listing could hurt the original company.
It was legal, even if it invited criticism for harming shareholder value. But once the Blue House-related suspicions broke, it was framed as if some illegal bribe had changed hands behind the scenes.
Since it was all speculation without evidence, the misunderstanding should have faded naturally with time. The problem was now.
For one thing, a boycott of GL Group products had begun spreading.
Since both GL Chemical and GL Entech were B2B companies, the boycott itself wouldn’t have much of an effect. But GL Electronics and GL Cosmetics were different.
Sales hadn’t dropped immediately, but they were already fretting over whether this would create problems down the line.
And GL Chemical’s share price kept falling without mercy.
Since Continue Capital had set a target price of 400,000 won for GL Chemical, other private equity funds moved all at once.
Empty Pool Research and KSGI both declared short positions at the same time, and hedge funds around the world chasing hot money rushed in and dumped their sell orders.
Institutions that had been holding the stock to avoid losses also started selling, and the price that had barely held in the 750,000-won range fell another 20 percent, sliding down to the 600,000-won mark.
Nearly 30 trillion won of market capitalization had already vanished.
As the stock collapsed, public sentiment worsened even more, and even the media outlets that took GL Group’s advertising money began voicing concern.
Go Jae-ik let out a sigh.
“If we list now, all we’ll be doing is making things easy for Continue Capital.”
It was estimated that the money Continue Capital had poured into the short sale was around 10 trillion won. If the price really fell to 400,000 won, they’d walk away with 10 trillion even after financing costs.
Considering the holding period, it was a ridiculous return.
The solution to stopping it was simple.
Just halt the GL Entech listing. Even announcing that the listing would be delayed would make the stock recover immediately.
But that was impossible.
Whether Continue Capital made money or how much criticism GL Chemical took, they had no choice now but to push the listing through.
They had been completely cornered.
Go Jae-ik muttered with a hollow laugh, almost to himself.
“So that’s why he brought Namgoong Seok into this... Was that the goal from the very beginning?”
Go Hyeon-ji had brushed off everything Han Miru said at the birthday party as no big deal.
No matter how famous an investor he was, no matter how impressive the private equity firm he worked for might be, she had figured there was no way he could do anything against a giant empire like GL Group.
But what happened afterward went far beyond anything she could have imagined.
GL Chemical’s stock had crashed, and GL Group’s image had sunk to the bottom.
The entire group was in emergency mode, and the mood at home was so tense it was hard to breathe.
It was hard to believe one person could have done all that.
Feeling stifled, Go Hyeon-ji left home and headed to Shinsegae Department Store.
At her level, she didn’t walk around the floor picking out items for herself. Instead, the staff brought new products up to a private room in the department store and explained each one in order, and she chose from there.
Shopping was her hobby.
Even when she was depressed, a little shopping would put her in a better mood right away. So she bought a pile of clothes, bags, and shoes... but her mood still didn’t really improve.
After finishing up her shopping, she met Min Ah-reum at the VIP lounge café.
Min Ah-reum looked at her face and asked, “Are you okay? Are you feeling sick?”
“Ah, no.”
To be honest, the only thing on Go Hyeon-ji’s mind was Han Miru.
So when he said he was really interested in GL Group that day, this is what he meant?
At first she’d thought he meant he was interested in her and had misunderstood the whole thing. Who would have guessed he meant he was going to smash GL Group to pieces?
For some reason, the way she had acted toward him that day was starting to gnaw at her.
Could he possibly be angry because of me?
If there was any chance he’d been upset with her, she wanted to meet him and smooth things over.
Go Hyeon-ji asked carefully, “Um... unnie...”
“Yeah?”
“About Han Miru...”
“What about him?”
“Well...”
Every man Go Hyeon-ji had met up until now would have leapt to help if she asked them for a favor.
So what about him?
Somehow, it felt like he wouldn’t budge an inch. Maybe asking for a favor only mattered if you were asking someone who would actually say yes.
Just as she was about to say it was nothing, Min Ah-reum spoke first.
“Oh! Right. Did you hear about that?”
“Hear what?”
“Apparently Miru may have been the one who tipped off Rep. Namgoong Seok.”
That made Go Hyeon-ji jump.
“What? Is that really true?”
“Probably.”
“That makes no sense.”
“How so?”
“He shorted GL Chemical, saying the GL Entech listing would crush the stock, and then told a lawmaker to stop the listing? If the listing gets canceled, wouldn’t he take a loss?”
Min Ah-reum let out a small laugh.
“That’s what I thought at first too, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on.”
“What do you mean, not what’s going on?”
“Think about it. What do you think was the biggest concern Continue Capital had while pulling this off?”
“Uh... I’m not sure.”
“That GL Chemical might delay or give up on the GL Entech listing.”
Short selling itself cost money.
Just delaying the listing process would have dealt a serious blow. If it had actually been canceled, the stock would have skyrocketed, and they’d have taken a massive loss instead.
“But right now, what does GL Chemical look like? Do they seem like they’re going to delay the listing or give up on it? Or do they seem like they’re going to push ahead?”
“That...”
“Obviously the latter. Because this whole thing brought the post-split listing issue into the spotlight, and Rep. Namgoong Seok is pushing hard to regulate it by law. If a law like that really gets made, wouldn’t future GL Entech listings become a lot harder?”
“W-well, yes.”
“In the end, GL Chemical has to finish this listing no matter what. In other words, they’re in a position where they have no choice but to help Continue Capital rake in a huge profit from the short sale.”
Go Hyeon-ji’s eyes widened until they looked like they might pop out.
“W-wait a second. You’re saying he moved politics and public opinion so they couldn’t back out of the listing?”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“Then don’t tell me he also stirred up the suspicions about the president...”
“That was probably Miru too.”
“Th-that’s impossible.”
Until now, Go Hyeon-ji had looked down on Han Miru.
He wasn’t from a chaebol family or anything like that. She had assumed he was just a lucky investor who’d happened to strike it rich and gain a name for himself.
But now she thought differently.
The moment she remembered what Han Miru had said and done that day, her whole body started to tremble.
If I’d known this would happen, I should’ve treated him better that day.