New Investment (6)
The Heo Minhong I met in person was surprisingly ordinary.
Of course, he hadn’t been born into a chaebol family, and until not so long ago he’d been nothing more than an ordinary office worker at a brokerage firm.
And yet now he was exerting enormous influence over the business world. Han Miru was practically a predator that had emerged into once-peaceful business circles.
The first time his name had truly spread through the chaebol world was during the Hanjung Group crisis. Back then, no one had believed he could bring down one of Korea’s ten largest conglomerates. But the result had been Hanjung Group’s collapse.
Even then, Hanjung Group had been dead last among the top ten, a place that had been riddled with problems for years. But this time, GL Group had been taken down without even getting a real chance to fight back.
As if that weren’t enough, the aftermath had pushed through legislation regulating chaebols, tying the hands of more than a few conglomerates. The chaebols took the losses, while Continue Capital walked away with the gains.
The sheer firepower of Continue Capital’s capital was fear itself. A private equity fund that gathered money from outside investors had to keep those investors happy, but a family office run entirely on personal capital could deploy funds however the owner saw fit, with no outside pressure at all.
Continue Capital’s representative was David Lockhart. But in Korea, everyone knew the investments were effectively being driven by Han Miru.
Even during the GL Entech fiasco, when almost every brokerage in the country took losses, Hwaan Securities had escaped the danger. The person who had arranged the meeting between Han Miru and Hwaan Securities was Heo Minwoong.
Thanks to that, Minwoong’s standing within the group had only grown stronger. And the stronger he became, the more uneasy Minhong grew.
Then this time, Nextrogen successfully unveiled its hydrogen car platform, and even the market-cap ranking inside Hwaan Group got turned on its head.
If I’d gone to the States myself back then…
Regret was always too late, no matter how fast it arrived.
Minhong hid his bitterness and said, “I hope we can continue to maintain a good relationship.”
“Likewise. In the hydrogen industry, Hwaan Energy is an extremely important partner for us.”
Minhong held out his hand first. “Thank you for hearing me out today.”
Han Miru took it. “I was glad to meet you as well.”
I watched Minhong’s back as he walked away and thought about it.
He had asked to meet me today because he wanted to make sure that even if he inherited the group, our relationship would remain unchanged. Unlike some people, he was a good man. Unfortunately, he and I simply weren’t meant to be connected.
On the way back from meeting Minhong, I got a call.
“It’s been a while.”
“Yes. It has, Chairman.”
“Are you free today? I’d like to have a drink with you later.”
It seemed like a lot of people were looking for me today.
“Where should I go?”
At 9:30 p.m., I’d expected a wine bar or a whiskey lounge when he said we’d have a drink, but the meeting place turned out to be a kimchi stew restaurant near Jongno.
I walked up to the shop, where the closed sign was hanging in the window. A bodyguard waiting outside opened the door for me.
“The chairman is inside.”
When I stepped into the narrow restaurant, Chairman Heo Seonghun was already seated there. There were no other customers.
I sat down across from him. “It’s been a while.”
He said, almost jokingly, “Last time you barged in on me without warning at such a late hour. Why haven’t you been coming by lately?”
“So I’m allowed to come by?”
“Of course. You’re welcome anytime.”
I looked around the empty shop. “Is this the famous kimchi stew place you mentioned before?”
Chairman Heo nodded. “I’ve been coming here since I was young. I like kimchi stew, so I order it wherever I go, but it never tastes quite like it does here. Beef or sashimi gets better the more expensive it is, but kimchi stew isn’t like that. The 100,000-won kimchi stew at a hotel isn’t necessarily better than the 10,000-won one you get at the market.”
“Well, kimchi is the main ingredient.”
Every household’s kimchi tasted a little different, so it was hard to say with any certainty that one kimchi stew was better than another.
“Exactly. In the end, if you want to enjoy this taste, you have no choice but to come here.”
There’s a term for it: omnivore.
The lower classes enjoyed only lower-class culture, but the upper classes didn’t just enjoy elite culture—they enjoyed lower-class culture too.
Silicon Valley founders lived in sprawling mansions and flew private jets, yet they wore jeans and T-shirts and loved hamburgers.
When you had money, you could choose between kimchi stew and a top-grade steak, or between backpacking across the world and taking a luxury cruise.
He probably came here not because there weren’t any fine Korean restaurants or expensive hotel dining rooms nearby, but simply because it suited his taste.
“You didn’t rent out the whole place, did you?”
“Haha, this place closes at nine. So I suppose you could call this extended hours.”
While we were talking, the owner brought over a metal bowl full of kimchi stew and turned on the burner beneath it.
Chairman Heo said to him, “Sorry for keeping you this late. You can’t even go home early because of me.”
The young owner bowed his head. “Not at all, Chairman. Thank you so much for coming here. If you ever let us know in advance, I’ll have everything ready even if it’s the middle of the night.”
It didn’t sound like flattery for the sake of flattery. He seemed genuinely sincere.
“The owner’s very polite.”
“I wasn’t going to say this because it sounds like bragging, but actually I own the building.”
“Really?”
“About twenty years ago, the building owner said he was going to redevelop the place and push them out, so they were about to close down. But I liked this place. Not just the taste—the atmosphere too. So I bought the building. That’s how they’ve been able to keep running here, generation after generation.”
He had bought the building just to protect a restaurant he liked.
As expected of him—he really did things with a bang.
By then, the stew had started to boil.
“Go ahead and dig in.”
We each served ourselves and started eating.
Chairman Heo asked in a voice full of expectation, “How is it?”
It was delicious, but honestly, it wasn’t anything especially extraordinary. If I lived nearby, I’d come sometimes. But it wasn’t the kind of place I’d travel far for.
Still, when someone asks for your reaction like this, isn’t it only polite to say it’s good?
“This is the best kimchi stew I’ve ever had. I can see why you like it so much.”
Chairman Heo burst into a pleased laugh. “Haha! Right? Everyone I bring here says the same thing.”
“……”
Who would ever tell the chairman the restaurant he brought them to was bad?
“Have a drink.”
I took the soju he poured for me.
He clinked glasses with me lightly, then knocked back his drink.
“I hear you made a great deal of money this time.”
“It wasn’t my money.”
“Even ten percent of that would be on par with our group’s annual operating profit, wouldn’t it?”
In a private equity fund, when a major investment succeeded, the operating team could take home success fees in the tens of percent. A ten percent cut for me wouldn’t have been strange at all.
It wasn’t as if a single private individual had made over two trillion won. Anyone would be stunned by that.
“Back when I was young, finance was only about lending money. But the world has changed. I heard from Heo Seokyun that thanks to you, Hwaan Securities managed to avoid the danger. Thank you.”
“Well, I got help too.”
“Once I’d seized Hwaan Securities, it wouldn’t have made much difference to the plan, would it? I’m not foolish enough to confuse a business deal with a favor.”
“I appreciate you seeing it that way.”
“You met Minhong today, didn’t you? Ah—don’t misunderstand. I wasn’t having you watched.”
It must have been reported by Minhong’s office staff.
“Yes.”
“What did you talk about?”
He was probably already guessing, so I told him honestly.
“It seems he’s worried about who’ll inherit the group.”
“I see.”
Chairman Heo took another drink of soju and said, “Do you know how old I was when I became chairman?”
“I believe you were twenty-eight.”
“That’s right. I became chairman before I’d even learned the ropes.”
He must not have received proper successor training either, so he had probably spent his early years learning one thing at a time after being thrust into the chairman’s seat.
His father had been the founder. Since the whole family had worked together to build the group, his father’s brothers and relatives could just as easily become rivals as helpers, depending on the circumstances.
Back then, I’d heard he deliberately shouted at the older retainers and spoke to them informally so no one would look down on him.
Come to think of it, maybe Heo Minwoong’s habit of running around using casual speech and acting like a tyrant had something to do with his father’s influence.
In any case, despite everyone’s concerns, Chairman Heo had grown Hwaan Group into the giant it was today.
He murmured as though lost in memory, “Feels like yesterday I was running over after work to hear that Father had passed away while I was drinking with my colleagues… and now decades have gone by. Sometimes I can’t even believe I’m older than my father was. I’m not going to be chairman forever, so I’ll have to decide soon who to hand the group over to.”
Everyone in the world knew the name of the Enple founder, but not the names of his children. NS and AMZ were the same way.
When they were ready to retire, they handed the reins to professional managers and walked away.
But Korea was different.
Korean chaebols had a beautiful tradition of passing management rights down to their children.
“Raising children is as hard as building a group. The eldest boy, fortunately, has always followed my lead. I gave up on the second one a long time ago. Well, not every child can turn out well. If you can salvage just one, that’s enough, so I let him do whatever he wanted—but this time he caused a disaster of epic proportions.”
“Are you talking about Thomas Motors?”
Chairman Heo nodded. “Thanks to your advice, I assume.”
“And thanks to Vice President Heo Minwoong listening to my advice.”
“That’s the important part. A chairman doesn’t have to be the smartest man in the room. There are plenty of smart people in any company. What matters is knowing which advice to follow and which advice to ignore. I never would’ve thought the son I assumed only knew how to have fun would have that kind of judgment.”
If solar power was like planting rice, hydrogen was gold mining.
With the former, returns were proportionate to what you invested. With the latter, it was either a jackpot or a total wipeout. He probably hadn’t expected that jackpot to land so early.
The important thing was that the hydrogen truck was only the opening act of the hydrogen economy. And Hwaan Energy was clearly ahead of every other company.
That was all thanks to Heo Minwoong.
“The problem is that because of it, the younger one’s gotten too big. At this rate, the two brothers may end up clawing at each other. And once that starts, they’ll become worse than strangers to one another. I don’t want to see that while I’m still alive, if I can help it.”
Blood may be thicker than water, but once management rights get involved, the story changes.
They said power wasn’t something even parents and children shared, so what could you expect from brothers?
“If it were you, what would you do?”
……
Why was he asking me that?
I had no idea why I was supposed to be giving chaebol succession advice now.
But I understood what he meant.
Chairman Heo wasn’t asking me to compare his two sons objectively. He simply wanted to know what I thought.
Because Continue Capital was connected to Nextrogen and Saudi capital.
I gathered the information I had and made a cold, objective judgment.
“First, Vice President Heo Minhong would do what he’s always done and grow Hwaan Group in a stable and steady way.”
“Hmm. Is that so?”
“Yes. I have a decent eye for people, and he strikes me as diligent and reliable.”
“If you say so, then it must be true.”
No parent disliked hearing praise about their child.
Chairman Heo nodded with a satisfied expression.
What about Heo Minwoong, then?
He had originally been the one to take responsibility and step aside after the Thomas Motors disaster, then accept a suitable affiliate and peel off on his own.
So whether he’d be able to run Hwaan Group well or not, even I couldn’t say for sure.
But…
“Vice President Heo Minwoong has one huge advantage that his older brother doesn’t.”
“And what’s that?”
“He’s close to me.”
Chairman Heo gave me a slightly incredulous look.
“That’s supposed to be an advantage?”
I laughed. “I was joking.”
At my words, Chairman Heo let out a snort of laughter too.
“What a ridiculous joke.”
I’d said it as a joke, but he knew perfectly well it wasn’t entirely one.
When it comes to business, connections matter.
And connections like mine were not easy to find.