The Restructuring Division head's office was on the twentieth floor of headquarters.
The air here was always cold and dry.
Beyond the windows, Yeouido's forest of buildings groaned beneath the enormous wave of the IMF crisis, but this was a fortress of ruthless architects intent on using that wave as leverage to reshape the empire.
Division Head Oh Se-dong turned through my report page by page, his eyes gleaming behind his glasses.
“Executive Director Hwang Gi-cheol's embezzlement ledgers….”
His lips twisted into an unpleasant smile.
“The chairman casts aside even his own children without mercy. A mere second cousin would certainly be enough to enrage him.”
“Once the default became official and the creditor group began its due diligence, there was a considerable risk that not only Hwang's embezzlement but also the controlling family's financial dealings would come under scrutiny. I therefore filed a criminal complaint with the prosecutors preemptively to cut off that tail.”
He looked up at my impassive report.
His gaze was relentless, as though he intended to lay bare every thought in my head.
“File the complaint first, report afterward. That rankles a little, but the work itself is flawless. However, Baek.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What is this ‘Proposal for a Sale to a Third Party’ attached to the end of your report? Rubicon Partners?”
The moment had finally come.
In an unwavering voice, I offered the bait I had prepared.
“It is a foreign private equity fund offering to acquire all the shares on condition that it refinance Taeseong Pharmaceuticals' fifty billion won in debt in full.”
“Its capital is based in a tax haven, so its identity is opaque. But its ability to mobilize cash is beyond doubt.”
His eyes narrowed.
“They want to spend fifty billion on a hollow shell like Taeseong Pharmaceuticals at a time like this? Are they fools, or is there something else we do not know?”
“They have no interest in the substance of the business, such as pharmaceutical technology or new drugs.”
I added an excuse designed to appeal to his elitist prejudices.
“They are after the Suwon factory site in the Seoul metropolitan area, along with a pharmaceutical manufacturing license they can put to immediate use. It is a typical vulture fund strategy: securing an Asian production base at a pittance.”
“They also need a channel for money laundering, and they were clearly eager to hurry the transaction along.”
My flawless reasoning left him lost in thought for a moment.
For headquarters, this was an opportunity to shed fifty billion won in bad debt while neatly washing away the stain Hwang Gi-cheol had left on the controlling family.
Whether Rubicon was speculative capital or something else, someone was offering to pay to remove the rotten limbs that had to be severed to protect Taeseong's heart. There was no reason to refuse.
“A vulture fund. Generous, for jackals rushing in at the scent.”
He nodded in satisfaction.
“Good. I will report to the chairman myself. It was a tail we intended to discard anyway, and now we have saved fifty billion as well. He will be very pleased.”
He scrawled his signature on the documents with a heavy fountain pen.
“Baek. You deserve considerable credit for this. You are attracting attention here in the RD. I will expect more from you.”
“You flatter me, sir.”
"Of course, do not forget that I am still watching you."
He added the warning coldly.
I bowed respectfully.
“Yes, sir. I will remember.”
His piercing gaze followed me out of the office, but I could not suppress the smile spreading across my lips.
It was the perfect hijacking, one even the empire's ruthless architect had failed to see through.
Now Taeseong Pharmaceuticals would officially break away from the Taeseong Empire's territory and become the first prize I could devour entirely for myself.
A few days later, as December drew to a close, the main conference room at Taeseong Bank's head office in Yeouido hosted a gathering of anxious merchant bank lending officers and bank executives whose funds were tied up in Taeseong Pharmaceuticals.
Every gaze was fixed on the same man.
Joo Yun-ha sat at the center of the dais, his legs casually crossed.
"I-is this really confirmation of a fifty-billion-won cash deposit?"
The merchant bank executive's voice trembled.
In the center of the table lay a transfer confirmation from a foreign bank.
It represented a staggering sum in cash, deposited after converting a tiny fraction of Rubicon Partners' vast dollar holdings into won.
These were hellish times, with even merchant banks running dry of foreign currency and defaults following one after another.
To the creditors teetering at the edge of a precipice, a foreign fund offering to repay tens of billions in a single cash payment was nothing short of a savior.
"If you have checked the documents, please affix your seals."
Joo tossed an expensive fountain pen onto the table.
"The terms are as agreed in advance. Effective immediately, Rubicon will refinance Taeseong Pharmaceuticals' remaining fifty billion won in debt in full. At the same time, every joint and several guarantee and payment guarantee Taeseong Group headquarters provided for the pharmaceutical company will be terminated immediately."
"Of course! If you are repaying everything in cash, what use are those guarantees?"
"All mortgage liens and pledges registered against the factory land and production equipment are also to be discharged here."
"Naturally. I will have the Legal Team prepare the discharge documents immediately!"
The creditors' representatives rushed to stamp their corporate seals on the approval documents, each eager to secure the cash a second sooner.
TAP, TAP, TAP.
The brisk sound of stamping seals filled the conference room.
With every stamp, another strand of the tenacious legal umbilical cord connecting Taeseong Pharmaceuticals to the main body of Taeseong was cleanly severed.
Last of all, the figurehead CEO, attending in place of the detained Executive Director Hwang Gi-cheol, signed with a trembling hand.
It was the 'Share Transfer Agreement.'
Management control and 100% of Taeseong Pharmaceuticals' equity passed completely to Rubicon Partners.
"Thank you for your work. With this, Taeseong Pharmaceuticals is an independent legal entity, entirely severed from Taeseong Group."
Joo swept the documents into his leather bag with a cold smile.
***
At the same time, back in the Restructuring Division on the twentieth floor of Taeseong Group headquarters, the telephone on my desk rang briefly.
I lifted the receiver and heard Joo's deep voice, with every trace of background noise shut out.
"Chairman. The creditors' meeting and the share transfer agreement have both been concluded."
"Have you severed every connection with headquarters?"
"Yes. The payment guarantees have been terminated, and the pledges discharged without a hitch. The pharmaceutical company now has nothing to do with Taeseong Group. It belongs entirely to Rubicon."
"Good work, CEO Joo."
I set down the receiver and looked beyond the partition.
On one side of the Restructuring Division's office, Senior Department Head Song Jae-woong and Manager Lee Jae-hyeon were sighing in relief, pleased that they had shed the diseased tail called Taeseong Pharmaceuticals and received fifty billion won for it.
Division Head Oh Se-dong, too, would be privately satisfied that his decision had stopped the group's bleeding.
'Idiots.'
Expressionlessly, I studied the sprawling organizational chart of Taeseong Group's forty affiliates on my monitor.
A red line slashed through [Taeseong Pharmaceuticals] at the outermost edge.
It was the slaughter of an empire feeding on its own flesh.
You may have cut off and discarded the tail that looked most rotten, but I am already looking forward to your screams when you discover the true value hidden inside it.
I ran my fingers over the clinical data for ‘TS-702’ hidden deep inside my drawer.
Now it was time to begin the real magic that would turn this hollow shell into gold.
Before I knew it, 1998 had arrived.
The new year had dawned, but there were no blessings for South Korea.
The New Year's bells had been drowned out by the screams of bankrupt breadwinners.
Instead of hopeful greetings, the streets were filled only with the silence of crowds lining up with gold jewelry they had kept tucked away at home.
Beneath the enormous guillotine of national default, some lost their heads, while others drank their blood and thrived.
Late one night, in the penthouse at Y Hotel in Yongsan, Joo delivered his report.
"Chairman. The pharmaceutical company's corporate registration changes and debt repayments are complete, but……. Hah."
He loosened his tie and let out a deep sigh.
Dark circles lay beneath his eyes, and his expensive suit was so creased that he looked as though he had worked through several nights.
"Managing the investment bank's funds is demanding enough. With the pharmaceutical company's operations on top of that, frankly, even two of me would not be enough. If I am to serve as the public 'CEO of Rubicon Partners' as well, I need someone dependable to handle the internal operations."
His complaint was no exaggeration.
If we were to grow beyond a mere fund into a vast group managing tangible assets worth hundreds of billions of won, we could not keep saddling CEO Joo Yun-ha alone with all the work forever.
Without a word, I slid a file across the table.
"I know. That is why I intend to bring someone new aboard."
He opened it with a puzzled expression.
Inside was the résumé of a young man with rather sharp features.
[Kim Jeong-gon. Age 35. Former Manager, Risk Management Team, Inju Securities.]
"Inju Securities……?"
"It was formally declared in default not long ago and fell apart. It was one of the securities firms that had gathered the country's finest elites, but it could not weather the wave of merchant bank failures and collapsed miserably."
I gently swirled my whiskey glass and continued.
"This Kim Jeong-gon had a genius's intuition for risk management in derivatives and tangible assets, even among his peers at Inju Securities. But he lost out to those who courted influential patrons and played office politics. He remained stuck as a manager, forever on the sidelines."
A cold memory from my previous life swept through my mind.
In the mid-2010s, Taeseong had recklessly pushed ahead with an overseas project financing venture worth trillions of won.
While everyone proclaimed rosy prospects, one man alone had seen through the structural trap in those derivatives and made utter fools of Taeseong's arrogant Strategic Planning Office.
He would later return in triumph as a foreign investment bank's Director for Asia, a legendary fund manager commanding colossal sums.
That man was Kim Jeong-gon.
When the risks he had warned about materialized exactly as predicted, Taeseong lost hundreds of billions of won.
As its hound, I had spent months working myself bloody to clean up the mess.
I had learned of his abilities the hard way in my previous life. There was no room for doubt.
But right now, he was merely a jobless thirty-five-year-old, thrown onto the streets after the company he had believed would employ him for life collapsed overnight.
"If I had to guess, he is probably drinking soju without food at a street stall in one of Myeongdong's back alleys, cursing the world. CEO Joo, please go and bring him in yourself. He is much younger than you, but his practical expertise will take the burden off your shoulders."
"Ah, understood. I will contact him immediately."
I stopped on my way out and added,
"And a small matter. You have now become a true partner to me, and you are older than I am. From now on, I will address you as 'CEO Joo' with greater respect."
"Pardon? Chairman, there is no need to……."
"I believe it would be better for our relationship."
He cleared his throat, looking a little embarrassed, and bowed his head.
"……Well, if that is your wish. Understood, Chairman."
"Oh, and one more thing. I have a personal loan of one hundred million won that I took out from Taeseong Bank some time ago. It is not a large sum, but that lingering little debt keeps nagging at me. Please refinance it with Rubicon's funds."
He chuckled and readily nodded.
"That is no trouble at all. I will have it settled tomorrow morning."
"Very well, CEO Joo. Please take care of the matters we just discussed."
"Of course, Chairman. You can leave them to me."