The Chaebol Who Flies From Space - Chapter 64



Only Noblemtl

64. Entering a new business (1)

As the owner had boasted, the renovation of the newly purchased house was completed very quickly. Furniture was brought into the empty house and curtains were hung.

When the house became habitable, I left the hotel and moved to a new house in Bel Air. I said that the house was far from Beverly Hills, but the address of the new house was Bel Air.

In the morning, my younger sister left for work and I was leisurely enjoying a cup of coffee in the morning sunlight when the M&A team in Korea arrived.

Since we haven’t set up a corporate office in LA yet, our employees came to our house.

It was a spacious five-bedroom house, but it felt cramped once the M&A team moved in.

Team leader Jeong and his team members, who had flown in after receiving the call, looked haggard.

I heard that you had been working all night until two days ago to acquire a new game company. When you were about to finish the acquisition and rest, the CEO called you from America.

I wanted to pass on the work right away, but looking at the condition of my employees, I couldn’t bring myself to do that.

Team Leader Jeong is annoying, but what did the employees do wrong? If they keep passing on the work now, they’ll all end up collapsing.

“I heard you’ve finalized the acquisition of the gaming company?”

“We acquired a game company called Happy World. It is a company that services an RPG game called Ratanan World. We have also renewed Ratanan World and decided to distribute it through Tencent.”

“I guess this game didn’t do well in business in Korea?”

“The RPG game market in Korea is very competitive these days. There are so many games coming out that the average games are just getting buried.”

“What they are saying is that even a well-made game will fail if you don’t have money to market it.”

“Ratanan World is a well-made game, so even though it wasn’t a box office hit, it has a passionate user base. We acquired all of Happy World’s shares and the game IP for 5 billion. We also decided to take over the existing employees.”

“How many employees are there in total in your company?”

“There are a total of 76 employees. The accounting manager who was dispatched from Holdings was so strict that I thought he was going crazy.”

“You’re doing well. That’s what I sent you to do.”

So far, the acquired company had been given free rein without any major restrictions. Now it was time to tighten things up.

We need to conduct a large-scale audit of affiliates and cut those who need to be cut.

Team Leader Jeong frowned at my words. He looked like he had been betrayed by someone he had thought would take his side.

Be that as it may, it wasn’t just WD Investment. Holdings employees were dispatched to Toad F&B and WD Chosun. Only Seohae Oil, which was just established, didn’t have any Holdings employees dispatched.

“You want me to take over Hansen?”

I heard the report from Team Leader Jeong, who had squinted eyes, and explained why I was called here.

“I will leave it up to Team Leader Jeong to decide whether to acquire shares or buy the company outright.”

He handed over a thick document that he had prepared in advance.

“Ha! Yes, if you tell me to do it, I should do it.”

He threw a big bait to Team Leader Jeong, who was sighing heavily. If he left it like this, he would 100% be fired. A capable slave should be kept for a long time.

“I’m not telling you to do it right away, but do it in a week. In the meantime, go sightseeing in the LA area. The company will cover the expenses. Find a nice hotel nearby and get some rest.”

Team Leader Jeong’s expression changed as he pondered the timing of when to resign at my words.

“Is that true? Then… Oh my.”

Team Leader Jeong, who had been delighted, soon bowed his head.

“Why is that?”

“What am I going to do if I’m here alone? It’s been a while since I’ve seen my family because of work.”

“Did your eldest son say he’s going to start school this year?”

“Thanks to the boss, I couldn’t even go to my eldest child’s entrance ceremony.”

It would have been a shame if I couldn’t attend my eldest child’s entrance ceremony due to my busy work schedule. What could I do?

[Send the Master’s private plane and call the family here as well]

I decided to follow Ariel’s advice.

“If I send a private plane, the family can come here easily. Tell them not to worry about the cost. But I don’t know if it’ll be possible because my eldest child has to go to school. Tell other employees to bring someone they brought this time. There’s a lot to see in LA.”

“No problem. Just submit an application for a field trip to the school my eldest child attends. My wife will be happy. The kids have been singing about going to Disneyland. I will tell my team members about this good news right away.”

The sight of Team Leader Jeong running outside as if he was about to jump looked very urgent.

“If you had just ordered me to do it, I would have resigned. The expression on your face when you looked at me earlier was unusual.”

[Since you met an evil boss like Master, the employees are suffering. You must have had conflicts in your heart, but would you have resigned? You probably have nothing to say to your family. Even if Master is an evil boss, doesn’t he pay you a lot of money?]

“That’s true. A week’s vacation would be enough, right?”

[You figure that out yourself. I’ll send a private plane to Korea.]

I sent the M&A team members on vacation and called in Song Han-young, the head of the New York headquarters.

Besides the Hansen acquisition, there were many things to assign to the New York branch staff and many reports to receive.

The employee who came with Director Song Han-young seemed intimidated after hearing what the M&A team members said.

Although the number is small compared to the M&A team at the headquarters, the US branch had two employees working on this type of corporate acquisition.

An employee came with Chief Song. The employee’s facial expression was dark, so I asked Chief Song in a low voice.

“Why do the employees here have such dark expressions?”

“I heard that once the boss starts working, he pours out work.”

“If you work hard, they’ll send you on a trip.”

Chief Song looked troubled at my words.

“……I’m saying that we should keep the work-life balance rather than travel. So why did you call me?”

“I have a job for you. Select a coffee chain in the US that is worth acquiring and get to work.”

“A coffee chain? Are you talking about something like Starbucks?”

“Yes, that’s it.”

Chief Song looked puzzled at my words.

“Then why don’t you just acquire Starbucks? It’s listed on NASDAQ, so it’s not difficult to acquire shares.”

“They already have a branch in Korea. We need a coffee chain that we can take over and bring to Korea.”

CEO Song Han-young was troubled by my words.

There are coffee chains all over the US. The question was whether they would be successful in Korea after acquisition.

I thought of several coffee chains that I knew of, but there was no coffee chain that I could actually acquire.

Because I thought the owner wouldn’t sell it if it was useful.

“Excuse me, can I speak?”

One of the employees who had been silently observing the situation gathered his courage and opened his mouth.

“Huh? Give it a try.”

“I found a decent coffee shop in Auckland. It’s a famous coffee shop in the area. It’s a specialty coffee shop where people line up to drink.”

“is it so?”

“The problem is that we’re just starting out and there’s only one coffee shop there.”

“There’s only one? The coffee tastes good?”

“Yes, I’ve had it a few times and it’s a very special coffee.”

Then what’s the problem? It didn’t matter whether there were one or two stores. If there were only a few stores, wouldn’t it be okay to just spend money to increase the number of stores?

“Take a look around there. What are the staff members’ names?”

“This is Kwak Young-Hwan, an employee at the New York branch.”

“Okay, Mr. Kwak, take charge and try to push it forward.”

As the employee left with his face reddened, he asked Director Song.

“The staff seems young?”

“I’m a new employee who just graduated from college. I work in venture capital and often go to San Francisco, so I think I found a coffee shop there.”

I just nodded.

“Chief, please look into other places. Isn’t this urgent? You can take your time looking into it.”

The acquisition of Hansen was a bit urgent, but there was no rush for the acquisition of the coffee shop.

“What happened to the venture capital (VC) you were supposed to create?”

“For now, we are recruiting staff to take charge of the VC division at the US branch. We think it would be better to create a new one rather than acquire an existing VC. We are looking for an office in Palo Alto, where there are many venture companies.”

I guess so. There was a real issue that needed to be discussed.

“What about stocks? It seems like the market is starting to heat up a bit these days.”

“Yes, it is as you said. There are signs here and there that the New York Stock Exchange is coming off the floor. Trading volume, which had decreased during the recession, is also increasing, so it seems that stock prices are about to rise in earnest.”

As I had been worrying about the stock price decline, the signal of an increase in the stock price was welcome news.

The New York branch’s main job is to secure good U.S. stocks to put into stock funds.

The stock prices of American companies included in stock funds have hit rock bottom, so there was no way to feel at ease.

“I told you not to worry too much about US stock prices.”

“How could that be? I heard that customers called the Korean headquarters to complain that the returns on stock funds were low. When they tried to withdraw their money, they were told that they couldn’t because it was a closed fund, so they caused a commotion in the lobby.”

“Why have I never heard such a report?”

“Why would you report something good to the boss? You just hush it up and move on. If something big happens or there’s a lot of noise, only the employees will get hurt.”

All stock funds sold by WD Investment are sold as closed funds, so you cannot get them back until maturity. I ordered them to do so.

Most managers might blame their employees when the room gets noisy, but I’m different.

“If the office furniture is damaged, file a lawsuit for damages. Blacklist the person so that he or she can never join the company fund again. By the way, has the employee been assaulted?”

Chief Song, who saw my frowning face, was startled and waved his hand.

“No. If something like that had happened, I would have reported it to the boss. It was just a commotion in the guest room.”

“That’s fortunate. If anyone causes trouble in the future at your company, tell them to follow the law. And don’t forget to put them on the blacklist.”

Why would I run a company while my employees get beaten up?

If someone is causing trouble, deal with them according to the law and increase their life difficulty. That’s all there is to it. It doesn’t matter how much money is spent.

“Doesn’t it seem like now is the time to buy stocks?”

“Yes, I think it’s just the beginning.

“Isn’t cash overflowing in WD? They buy American stocks.”

The companies I own, Toad F&B and Seohae Petroleum, are companies that are accumulating huge amounts of cash.

“Will the government permit overseas investment?”

“I tried it out briefly, but I don’t think they will oppose it. They did put a condition that they can come back at any time if the foreign exchange situation gets difficult. It seems that they are having a hard time because the won is overvalued due to the West Sea oil field.”

“Didn’t they say that a second foreign exchange crisis was coming just recently?”

“It’s a big deal. The inflow of foreign capital has increased a lot recently. The won per dollar has fallen to 1,100 won. The Ministry of Strategy and Finance is worried that it will fall below 1,000 won.”