Crisis Is an Opportunity (3)
That was a declaration that he would leave the hydrogen energy business in Heo Min-woong's hands instead of selling it off. Hur Min-hong opened his mouth as if to say something, but when he caught his father's expression, he shut it again.
Once the chairman had made his decision after careful thought, no one else offered a counterargument.
Chairman Heo Seonghun got to his feet. “Heo Min-woong Team Leader, come to my office later.”
“Understood.”
The executives all rose from their seats as well. Every one of them wore a complicated expression.
Seeing that, Hur Min-hong felt a sour twist in his chest.
It had been Hur Min-hong who first met the CEO of Bread Button, forged the partnership, and pushed the hydrogen infrastructure business forward. If it succeeded, he had planned to claim the credit; if it failed, he meant to lay the blame on his younger brother.
Now that it had failed, he should have been blaming his brother—and yet...
His brother had spotted the danger in advance and avoided it, while he had failed to do the same. In the end, he was the one left to shoulder the responsibility.
Until just before this, the succession structure at Hwaan Group had seemed relatively clear. The eldest son, Hur Min-hong, would inherit the conglomerate, while Heo Min-woong would take a suitable share for himself and peel away from the group.
No one had ever imagined that the younger brother would push past the elder and inherit the group instead.
But because of this incident, Heo Min-woong had stamped his presence onto everyone’s minds.
From this point on, the executives would set the two of them on a scale and compare them endlessly, weighing which side would be more advantageous to stand on.
When everyone had left, only the two brothers remained in the vast conference room.
Hur Min-hong looked at his brother and said, “You must have met David Lockhart in person.”
He had said he suspected something after seeing the public report, but there was no way he could have guessed that from the report alone.
The only way he could have reached such a quick judgment was by meeting someone beforehand and hearing other information from them.
He definitely partnered with Continue Capital in advance.
Given his brother’s personality, he would never have wasted time talking to just anyone. That was why Hur Min-hong assumed he must have met David Lockhart directly.
Heo Min-woong gave a snort of laughter.
David Lockhart was not the heart of Continue Capital. There was someone far more important behind him.
But there’s no need to tell him that.
He stood. “Think whatever you want, big brother.”
With the job done, the three employees decided to head back to New York first.
I told Morris Pearson, “Find a suitable office in Manhattan and get it set up.”
“Yes, sir.”
Then I called Edward Benson over separately.
“You really worked hard this time.”
“Not at all. It was a valuable experience for me too.”
The moment he jumped onto the stage and forced the hood open with his bare hands, that scene went out as news around the world.
It spread across countless websites and earned him the nickname Bonnet Man. Even now, if you searched for it, you could find the video without any trouble.
“How are people around you reacting?”
Edward rubbed his bald head. “Everyone thinks it’s hilarious. At home, though, they called because they thought I’d gotten into trouble again.”
Thomas Motors threatened to sue over interference with business and made a scene about it, but all it won them was ridicule.
When they were the ones who were about to get sued, who exactly did they think they were threatening?
“So it is possible to rip a hood off with brute force. I can barely lift the hood on a sedan.”
“If you know the trick, it isn’t that hard. Though, yes, you still need strength.”
I nodded at his arms. The man’s forearms were about the size of my thighs.
“Where do you learn a trick like that?”
He grinned. “Actually, I did some practice at a junkyard before going to the event. After tearing into five or six trucks, I had a rough idea of how it worked.”
“Hahaha!”
I burst out laughing.
Watching the video, I had thought he had simply torn the hood open with raw strength. I hadn’t expected him to practice beforehand too. He really was meticulous.
In a large private equity fund, work was done by team.
If I hadn’t hired him, David Lockhart would have built his own team at Shark Management and handled everything from deal sourcing to exit.
Edward Benson was the most important person on that team.
Even if he looked like nothing more than a muscle man, in reality he was sharper and more methodical than anyone else, serving as David Lockhart’s right hand.
He was especially talented in finance and accounting, which made him responsible for the team’s financial management. He was famous for exposing the cash flows and accounting fraud of target companies with ruthless precision.
He probably would have done well even as the CFO of a major corporation.
To think that getting David Lockhart would bring in talent like this as well.
“Before you head back to New York, make a quick stop in Michigan.”
“Why?”
“There’s something you need to do there.”
“What is it?”
After hearing my explanation, he asked, puzzled, “May I ask why?”
I told him the reason.
“If one specific company has a problem, that doesn’t mean the entire industry has a problem. In fact, isn’t this exactly the kind of moment when you can buy good companies at a bargain?”
At my words, Edward looked at me in surprise.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m a little shocked. While everyone else is pulling out of an investment, you’re saying you want to invest instead. It’s easy to say, but there can’t be many people who can actually do it.”
It was all thanks to knowing the future.
“Can I count on you?”
He nodded. “Of course.”
Thompson Daley had worked as a researcher developing hydrogen vehicles for a global automaker.
In the early days of research, electric cars and hydrogen cars had been seen as rivals, but at some point electric vehicles had clearly taken the lead.
Both hydrogen cars and electric cars used electricity to drive a motor, so their operating principle was the same. But while an electric car only needed a battery, a hydrogen car had to carry a fuel cell stack and a high-pressure hydrogen tank.
Not only did it require more advanced technology, it was also more expensive and took up more space.
For passenger cars, electric vehicles definitely had the advantage.
The hydrogen car division was dismantled, and Thompson was moved over to the electric vehicle development team.
Internal combustion cars had a large number of parts and required a high level of technical expertise. That was why, in the past, only large conglomerates that could afford massive investment and hiring had been able to enter the market.
But electric vehicles were different.
If an internal combustion car was a machine, an electric vehicle was closer to an electronic device. It had less than one-tenth the number of parts, and components such as batteries and motors were easy to standardize.
Because the barrier to entry was so low, electric vehicle startups sprang up everywhere. Some companies even used 3D printers to build cars.
Electric vehicle startups were everywhere, while hydrogen car startups were almost nonexistent.
The reason was obvious: electric vehicles had won. But there were still a few unresolved problems.
An electric car had fewer parts than an internal combustion car, and it didn’t have the heaviest component of all—the engine. So was it lighter?
Not really.
If the body size was the same, an electric car was usually about 15 percent heavier than an internal combustion car.
The reason was the battery.
In truth, batteries had a pretty poor energy storage density. And even if you used up all the stored energy, the battery’s weight did not decrease.
If you want to extend an EV’s range, you have to add more batteries. That raises the price and the weight, while reducing cargo capacity. On top of that, charging takes longer too.
A hydrogen car, on the other hand, only needed a larger hydrogen tank.
In other words, the farther the range, the better hydrogen cars became economically compared to electric vehicles.
If fuel cell stacks and high-pressure hydrogen tanks could be standardized and made cheaper, maybe hydrogen cars could become mainstream too.
Sensing that opportunity, Thompson left the automaker and founded a company called Nextrogen with his fellow researchers.
It was a company devoted to developing the fuel cell stacks and catalysts that could be called the core technology of hydrogen cars.
Rather than producing cars themselves, they planned to build a hydrogen vehicle platform and sell it to multiple automakers.
Their prediction proved correct.
Daeyeon Motors released a hydrogen truck, and Thomas Motors began drawing attention, which finally put hydrogen cars in the spotlight.
Investors lined up to ask about funding. Among them, the one showing the most aggressive interest was Shark Management.
It was the private equity fund led by none other than Michael Preston.
He announced that he would first acquire 51 percent of the company and secure a call option to take it over completely later.
Since they were still in the prototype-development stage, there was no telling how long it would take before they turned a profit.
If they received backing from a giant private equity fund, they could focus entirely on development without worrying about money. So Thompson was more than willing to take the investment.
And then, right before the deal was finalized, the Thomas Motors disaster exploded.
Thomas Motors was the leader of the hydrogen vehicle industry.
Once that company was exposed as a fraud, the belief spread that hydrogen cars had no real commercial viability.
Those self-proclaimed experts had been babbling just days earlier as if the age of hydrogen cars was about to begin any minute.
But once the scandal broke, they changed their tune as though nothing had ever happened and started saying hydrogen cars would have a hard time for a while.
Would anyone in their right mind invest in hydrogen cars in a situation like this?
Shark Management canceled at the last minute, and all the other investor inquiries dried up as well.
The problem was that they had expanded facilities and hiring on the assumption that the investment would come through. If the funds didn’t arrive immediately, they would have to shut the company down.
Thompson clutched his head with both hands and muttered, “It’s all over now.”
In the midst of that hopeless situation, someone came looking for him.
It was a strong black man in his thirties.
“Hello. I’m Edward Benson from Continue Capital.”
“Continue Capital? You don’t mean...”
When Thompson took a closer look at the man, he was shocked.
It’s Bonnet Man!
He was the very man who had torn the hood open at the Thomas Motors event. Right after that, Thomas Motors’ stock had collapsed in ruins, and Nextrogen’s funding had fallen through as well.
“W-what brings you here?”
Bonnet Man, if you could call him that, dropped an unexpected bombshell.
“I’d like to acquire your company.”
“U-us?”
“Yes. I’m thinking of investing $100 million in the first round.”
“……”
Once everyone else had left, it was just the two of us again.
I looked at David and said, “You look better than you did when we first met.”
“What did I look like when you first met me?”
“Like a man carrying the worries of the entire world on his shoulders.”
David gave a bitter smile. “That’s because I really was.”
The company he had worked for had gone under, and he had been branded a loser. With no new job in sight, his debts had only kept growing.
But now the situation had changed completely.
He was currently the most famous investor in the United States. And rightly so—he had taken the hottest company in the market, Thomas Motors, and sent it straight to hell with a single report.
Every media outlet was scrambling to interview him, and wealthy investors kept calling to say they wanted to put money behind him.
“You’re not planning to go somewhere else just because you’ve become popular, are you?”
He snorted softly. “Would you let me go if I said I was?”
“Of course not.”
David looked at me. “What are you going to do now?”
“Finish what I started.”
Thomas Motors had only ever been a means to an end.
The real objective was something else entirely.
David nodded. “You mean the Cooloud acquisition.”