The Chaebol Who Flies From Space - Chapter 37



Only Noblemtl

37. Family Fund Investment (1)

“It’s still cold in New York.”

On the way back to the office from the airport, New York was still a cold winter day. As the branch grew in size, there were many new faces. Song Han-young, whom I met in the branch manager’s office, personally brought me coffee.

“Even if the bitter cold has passed, it will still take some time for spring to come.”

“The coffee tastes good. The branch has grown a lot.”

“Our staff has doubled in number, and it will continue to grow. We have to open a branch in LA. We are still busy preparing for the increase in staff.”

“Are you still busy now?”

“I’m still so busy that 24 hours in a day aren’t enough. But since I left my investment bank on Wall Street and moved here, the workload has been reduced a lot. I’m able to get off work on time in the evening.”

“There’s a reason people on Wall Street retire young.”

Working on Wall Street requires a lot of work. It may seem glamorous and smart on the outside, but if you live from Monday to Friday, you won’t have enough time to handle the endless workload.

Successful investments in your 30s and retirement in your 40s are the dreams of fund managers and brokers. However, most of them do not achieve their dreams.

Manager Song touched his ear. He was receiving treatment at a hospital because he was hearing tinnitus due to the intense workload.

“Do you go to the hospital often?”

“It’s a hassle to make an appointment, but I get treatment regularly. I can endure it because the symptoms hardly show up when I get treatment. By the way, I heard you took over Emma Brown?”

“I just finished seeing Emma off on her flight to London.”

Manager Song seemed to have a lot to say about the company takeover.

“For a while, there was quite a stir among the fashion people in New York about this issue. Most people thought that LVMH would acquire it. I wonder if the CEO really needed to acquire it. It’s a local company with a decent name, but its sales aren’t that great. The acquisition price was higher than I thought. If we had left it to them, we could have acquired it at a much lower price.”

The atmosphere at the New York branch was definitely different from that at the Korean headquarters. Like Branch Manager Song, he was able to express his opinions to his superiors without hesitation.

They had gathered several experts at the branch, but it seemed that they were displeased with the mergers and acquisitions that did not go through their hands.

“I guess you’re unhappy that we didn’t entrust the acquisition to the New York branch.”

“Yes, that’s right. I was a little shocked when I heard later that the boss had acquired Emma Brown when I sent the money.”

“Because things were moving so quickly, there was no need to create an acquisition team. Who knew I’d run into Emma when I went on vacation?”

It was definitely not a traditional Wall Street M&A, as it was acquired in a hurry without going through a push-and-pull process.

“You met Emma in Miami? You didn’t go there to see Jamie.”

It was that story again.

“Jamie and I are just college friends.

“That’s not the picture that appeared in the newspaper.”

Even though we went shopping together, they cleverly took pictures of just the two of us and sent them out. Anyone who looked at the pictures would think that we were a couple.

I expected that the news would come out and there would be trouble here and there.

“There’s a reason the paparazzi are notorious.”

“It would be a shame if the two of you weren’t dating. I’m also a fan of Jamie. Isn’t this your chance to win everyone’s lover? Why don’t you just take on the challenge this time?”

“Let’s stop talking about Jamie. There’s nothing much to talk about.”

Manager Song looked regretful at missing the chance to hear the story behind his favorite star, but he was delighted by what I said next.

“We plan to increase the size of our IT investment fund.”

“How much if we increase the investment size?”

“We plan to invest an additional $2 billion.”

“You know that the New York market is not doing well these days, right?”

The New York stock market, which had been on an upward trend after 9/11, turned downward again and showed sluggish stock price movements.

“We have to look at the bottom. I think it has fallen to a level where there is nowhere else to go.”

“I am worried because this is the only investment fund created by the head office that is suffering losses. Even though it is acknowledged that it is inevitable to suffer some losses because the overall market is in a downtrend.”

“Since stock funds are managed on an annual basis, they should generate profits by the second half of the year.”

“Will the stock market really come alive by November?”

“Wouldn’t things start to loosen up a bit when spring comes? Interest rates are also dropping a lot.”

“I hope so. Have you decided on a company to invest in?”

“We are making additional investments in the companies we previously invested in.”

Manager Song Ji-jeom checked the current market price by operating the terminal on his desk.

“Okay, then it’s Amazon and Apple. Let’s see, Amazon is at $35.80 and Apple is at $13.20. Let’s try to secure the quantity without raising the market price too much. Have you decided on which company you will invest in additionally?”

“Can I buy more Google stock?”

Manager Song tilted his head at my words.

“Google? Isn’t that a company that hasn’t been listed yet? And the trading volume in the over-the-counter market isn’t that high. If you’re thinking about investing in Google, do you see Yahoo as unstable? It seems like it’s been adjusted a lot and now it’s safe to buy.”

The market had a high opinion of Yahoo. The stock had plummeted since the tech bubble burst, but it has since recovered and is now above $38, but my judgment was different.

“Yahoo’s era is over. A search company that can’t make one search engine is worthless.”

Yahoo gave up on creating its own engine and chose Google’s engine as its search engine.

In my view, it was a lack of ability.

“If you say so firmly, I will follow suit. Then, I will focus all additional investments on these two stocks. I will look into whether an investment in Google is possible.”

“And I think it would be better to change the plan to open a branch in LA to San Jose. Instead of an investment trust branch, it would be better to open a venture capital (VC) branch in San Jose.”

“VC? Well, we don’t plan on doing a lot of sales, and San Jose, where there are closer investment targets, might be better than LA, where there are a lot of people. But even if we were to make venture investments, it wouldn’t be easy.”

I already knew what Manager Song meant when he said it wasn’t easy.

Investing in a company that will generate profits through venture capital is as difficult as finding a grain of sand in the desert.

More than half of them are fraudsters, and the other half have technology but no marketability. Even important technology evaluations cannot be handled by an average workforce.

But don’t we have the best technology evaluation personnel on the planet that I know of?

***

I had to return to Seoul because of an urgent call. I got off at the airport and ran to our food without even having time to recover from the travel fatigue.

“Where are you wandering around like that? It’s so hard to even look at your grandson’s face.”

I tried hard to make excuses for my grandfather’s criticism.

“I have a lot of things spread out here and there. I’m still running from New York. Oh my, it’s hard.”

I pretended to be tired, wiping away sweat that wasn’t even there.

My grandfather, who had been watching me blankly, opened his mouth.

“······.Anyway, I’m against a blue-eyed granddaughter-in-law.”

My grandfather’s words made me sigh.

“That’s not it. Jamie is just a friend from college.”

“You idiot! Where is there any friendship between a man and a woman? If you meet and develop feelings for each other, it’s over. It’s over.”

I heard some old-fashioned noises somewhere, but I tried to ignore them.

“Oh, yes, yes,”

“Don’t ignore me just because I’m an old man! Anyway, we have to go to China together. Since you started it, you have to finish it together.”

I guess the issue of investing in Maotai has been resolved.

“I guess the discussions we had so far have been concluded?”

“Yeah, the Guizhou guys were acting up for a while, but then they heard word from the central government. Their stiff heads softened a lot. They said that was all they had, and refused to accept investment.”

My grandfather cursed the Guizhou provincial party secretary for a long time with a displeased expression on his face. It seems that he was demanding a lot of money.

“What are the conditions?”

“We decided to invest $400 million and acquire 32% of the total stake.”

“32%? That’s not too bad.”

The amount exceeded initial expectations, but did not get the desired share?

“I don’t know if this is the right thing to do. I don’t really like the idea of ​​using all my family’s money to invest.”

“You were in favor of investing at first.”

“As you get older, your thoughts change here and there. Now that you’re investing 400 million dollars, you can’t sleep at night.

“You haven’t been able to sleep at night before either.”

“Hmm! This little brat is spitting on the words of an adult. Anyway, the investment funds you mentioned before are not a problem, right?”

He turned his horse’s head away, shouting in embarrassment.

“How did you decide to divide the investment shares?”

“We decided to invest half with company funds and the rest with family money.

“The company has quite a bit of cash leeway.”

“You shouldn’t say that. More than half of that money is yours. The volume of WD Ramen produced is sold in Russia.”

“Russia? Not China?”

“Yes, orders are pouring in from Russia, so even if we work 24 hours a day, it’s hard to meet the demand. The Russian demand has exceeded 3 billion packs. I heard that the Roske guys eat up all that stuff as a hangover cure.

“We don’t have a Russian branch in our food business, but your company’s kids are also helping us a lot.”

“I’m glad to hear that things are going well.”

“The fingerprint guy complained to me. He said that you don’t even show your face these days.”

He set up a ramen factory and left the entire operation to factory manager Kwak Ji-moon.

“Anyway, I know you’re busy, but try to make time to see your face whenever possible. Subordinates don’t feel anxious if they see their boss’ face often.”

It is easy to rapidly increase required production by increasing the number of automated factories.

I forgot about it as production stabilized under the concept of an outsourcing factory, but I guess there was a lot of work to do.

“I guess I should go out sometimes. I’m so busy these days.”

“Yeah, I heard you’ve got a lot going on. You’ve even started a new liquor company and bought a clothing company in the US. The more work you do, the more you have to stay calm.”

The grandfather started talking more, perhaps because he was worried about his grandson who was doing a lot of work here and there.

“Should I prepare the remaining $200 million?”

“How could that be? I have my own funds, and I’ve pooled investment funds here and there with your father, and we’ve made 80 billion won. But everyone wants to borrow money by writing you a promissory note. Why is Myung-ju so greedy?”

Grandpa clicked his tongue.

“How much did you need, Aunt?”

“I’ll borrow $10 million from you and invest it. I’ll put in that much of my own money. So your little father is going to do the same.”

“That’s not that difficult.”

“Are you really going to lend me money for a long period of time without charging me any interest?”

“What if I get a certain amount of interest? It’s a family fund-type investment. I can’t tell you the exact amount, but it’s a lot of money. If you pretend not to know, you’ll be dissatisfied later. If you help a little at first, you won’t be able to say anything later.”

“I still don’t quite understand what you’re saying, but I’ve decided to invest anyway. I have to go to China in three days, so you should decide on the specifics of the investment. It’s a headache for me, even though I’m old.”

After being nagged by my grandfather for a while, I left the chairman’s office and headed home.

All my relatives gathered in advance and waited for me.

It was a gathering where all my cousins ​​who were in America gathered.

All the eyes looking at me were sparkling.

“Haha, I guess everyone has a lot to say to me.”

The youngest, Hye-ri, took up the gun.

“Honey, are you really dating Jamie?”

“No! We’re friends. Just friends. Okay!”

“I’m disappointed that we’re just friends.”

“I told you so. Why would a successful Jamie date Yongwon?”

“When people at work get together, they talk about it. I thought Jamie was going to be a family member.”

I heard a strange noise in the middle, but I just ignored it.

You left me alone and made a fuss, but isn’t there another reason you gathered here?

“Okay, now that you guys have your questions answered, let’s talk about the real thing. How much do you need?”