Licensing out (L/O) negotiations with Pryer (Pryer) had begun.
But the global pharmaceutical company's demanding due diligence and the signing of a contract would take at least several months.
Before that jackpot worth hundreds of billions of won arrived,
Rubicon Pharmaceuticals' enormous Suwon factory risked becoming a burden, standing idle while consuming money in fixed costs.
"Chairman. Would it not be better to put the Suwon factory staff on unpaid leave until the negotiations are concluded?"
Director Kim Jeong-gon made the suggestion cautiously.
"We have no drugs to produce at present, but the upkeep is costing far too much."
It was a sound restructuring proposal from the man in charge of our internal operations.
But I shook my head firmly.
"No. Run the factory lines at full capacity starting tomorrow."
"Pardon? Start production? Taeseong Pharmaceuticals' existing product range has already lost its competitive edge. We are saddled with dead stock as it is……."
"I am not telling you to make medicine."
I slid the rough design I had sketched for a brown glass bottle toward him.
At the center of the label, a bold font combined red and black.
[Tau-Max (Tau-Max)]
"What…… is this?"
"A highly concentrated fatigue-relief tonic that we will have approved as a quasi-drug."
I tapped the design with my finger and gave my instructions.
"Leave out all the complicated herbal ingredients and expensive compounds. Use only caffeine and taurine. Push both right up to their legal limits."
His brow furrowed.
"A tonic drink? Chairman, the drinks market is firmly controlled by the established pharmaceutical brands. There is hardly any room for a new brand to enter……."
"Existing products cost over 1,000 won a bottle or are sold only by the box."
I tossed a 500-won coin onto the desk.
CLINK-.
The bright metallic sound rang out.
"Tau-Max's retail price will be '500 won.' No exceptions."
"F-five hundred won?! However much we cut production costs, there will be nothing left after the distributors take their margins!"
"Low margins, high volume (small profits through large sales). Put the Suwon factory's immense production capacity to work."
I continued firmly.
"Drive costs as low as possible. From neighborhood pharmacies to corner shops and pushcart vendors, put it everywhere we can."
I pointed beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows.
January 1998 was already upon us. The winter streets were still frozen cold.
"Director Kim. It is still hell out there."
"……."
"The streets are full of breadwinners who were dismissed overnight from jobs they expected to hold for life. Now they drift between work as hired designated drivers and manual laborers. They do not need expensive restorative tonics or vitamins."
I stared out at the streets and drove the point home.
"They need a 'cheap stimulant' to get them through the bitter cold and despair of this one day. The strongest, most immediate energy a single coin in their pockets can buy."
Only then did his eyes light up.
He was a genius at risk management.
In an instant, he saw through the chilling psychology of the times embodied in that simple, inexpensive drink.
"……You mean to channel the despair of the times into the simplest, most instinctive purchase."
He swallowed and picked up the design.
"Starting tomorrow, I will completely reconfigure the production lines. I will personally go out and secure the raw materials and distribution network."
"I look forward to the results."
We spent roughly a month preparing as though fighting a war. Then came March 2, 1998.
At dawn on Monday, after the March 1st Movement Day holiday, the Suwon factory's idle conveyor belts began moving with a roar.
CLINK, CLINK—!
Tens of thousands of brown glass bottles streamed along the rails in orderly rows.
From the nozzles poured a waterfall of 'Tau-Max,' a dark red liquid heavy with the scent of concentrated caffeine.
The labeling and capping processes repeated without pause, and soon boxes bearing Rubicon's red logo were loaded onto delivery trucks and dispatched across the country.
The response was nothing short of explosive.
"Excuse me! Two bottles of Tau-Max, please!"
"Of course! That will be 1,000 won!"
It was dawn at the day-labor market.
The laborers waiting for work, trying to thaw their frozen hands, invariably held bottles of Tau-Max in their rough fingers.
The 500-won brown bottles filled the desks of office workers who routinely worked late amid the bitter winds of restructuring, and the shopping baskets of ordinary people joining the Gold Collection Campaign with heavy sighs.
The moment they swallowed it, concentrated caffeine and taurine sent a fierce jolt through their heads.
For ordinary South Koreans driven to the brink, it was the perfect painkiller: the cheapest way to forget their suffering for a moment.
[Chairman! The first production run of one million bottles of Tau-Max sold out within a week of launch!
Wholesalers are driving their trucks here and camping outside the factory!]
[We will expand the lines immediately and run three shifts around the clock!
Even if we have to add another 10% to the pharmacy distributors' margins, we will put our product at the very front of every display!]
Every day, Joo Yun-ha and Kim Jeong-gon's exultant cries, almost screams, echoed through the penthouse.
It was only a 500-won coin.
But once millions of bottles began selling every day, those coins became a vast river pouring furiously into Rubicon Pharmaceuticals' corporate account.
A perfect cash cow (Cash Cow) had been born, minting cash every day amid the hellfire of the IMF crisis.
"Chairman! Cash is arriving by the truckload from distributors across the country again today! Daily sales alone comfortably run into the hundreds of millions of won!"
It was mid-June 1998, in the penthouse at Y Hotel in Yongsan.
Although Rubicon Group now had an executive office in Gwanghwamun, we still used this place as our hideout to avoid outside attention.
Director Kim shouted excitedly, holding an approval folder.
Beside him, CEO Joo's face was also filled with unconcealed joy.
"That is not all, Chairman. We have just received word."
With a trembling hand, Joo offered a fax.
[From: Pryer (Pryer) Asia-Pacific Headquarters]
[Contents: The definitive agreement for licensing out (L/O) the TS-702 patent has been executed, and the upfront (Upfront) payment of USD 150 million has been transferred.]
The American pharmaceutical giant Pryer had finally swallowed the bait completely.
With the exchange rate still high, above 1,400 won to the dollar, an enormous sum in dollars worth a full two hundred ten billion won had landed in Rubicon's account.
Flushed with excitement, Kim opened the books and began briefing me on Rubicon's assets.
"Chairman, I will summarize Rubicon Group's current funds and liabilities. First, our expenditure. The fifty billion won used to repay the debt to headquarters when we acquired Taeseong Pharmaceuticals, plus the ten billion paid to Executive Director Hwang, were financed by borrowing a total of sixty billion won from M Investment's one-hundred-million-dollar credit limit (Credit Line)."
He adjusted his glasses and continued.
"The Suwon factory's line conversion and Tau-Max's initial marketing expenses were also covered by our initial capital. After all expenses, Tau-Max's net profit from sweeping the market over the past two months amounts to roughly twelve billion won."
Pointing to the fax, he tallied Rubicon's final ammunition reserves.
"In summary, our initial option profits of eighteen billion won, Tau-Max's twelve billion in net profit, and the two hundred ten billion from this Pryer signing payment bring Rubicon's current cash reserves to approximately two hundred forty billion won. Adding M Investment's remaining credit limit of approximately fifty-five million dollars (roughly seventy-seven billion won), our immediately available funds now exceed three hundred billion won."
The ability to mobilize three hundred billion won in cash.
It was more than a number.
In an IMF crisis where funding had dried up, cash on that scale carried a force that even a giant conglomerate like Taeseong could not dismiss.
"We do, of course, still owe M Investment sixty billion won. But exercising our right to dispose of the Jinsan Construction land held as collateral would erase that debt immediately. Combining our current cash reserves of two hundred forty billion won with the land's surplus value, the actual net assets Rubicon could immediately mobilize, even after repaying every debt, already amount to approximately five hundred billion won."
Only eight months earlier, this had all begun with a loan of just one hundred million won.
"You have both done well."
I answered briefly, gazing out the window.
Even at the sweet sight of money multiplying, my heartbeat remained steady.
This enormous capital was merely 'ammunition' for the next hunt.
It was time to move again.
***
During the first half of 1998, as the whole of South Korea groaned, the lights in the Restructuring Division on Taeseong Group's twentieth floor never went out for a single day.
Throughout that time, the RD was merciless.
It consolidated and closed down dozens of Taeseong Motors' suppliers, then ruthlessly cut away stores operating at a loss in the distribution sector.
The brutal slaughter continued to keep the main body alive, and I cemented my position on its bloody front lines as ‘the division head's sharpest blade.’
Of course, I also made sure to push the valuable affiliates I truly wanted to the very end of the hunting order, using carefully constructed arguments about ‘legal risk’ and ‘uncertain prospects of recovering funds.’
The following morning, in the Restructuring Division's office on the twentieth floor of Taeseong Group headquarters, an incredulous voice broke the silence.
“……That can't be right. Are those figures even possible?”
Senior Department Head Song Jae-woong, an expert in finance, gave a disbelieving laugh over an open newspaper.
Beside Song, Manager Lee Jae-hyeon stared at the monitor in a daze.
“Sir, have you seen Rubicon Pharmaceuticals' cash flow? They say it is now adding production lines entirely with its own equity capital, without taking out loans.”
“How long has it been since we threw it away with our own hands? We were delighted to get fifty billion repaid……. Who would have imagined it was a golden goose rather than rotten meat?”
With a bitter expression, Senior Department Head Song picked up a cigarette, only to set it down upon remembering the RD's smoking ban.
“Baek, have you seen it too? I mean Taeseong Pharmaceuticals, the company you drafted the sale proposal for.”
I answered calmly without stopping my work of arranging the documents.
“Yes. They appear to have been lucky. It seems their cheap stimulant strategy was exactly right for the IMF crisis.”
“Luck? This is far beyond luck. There's a monster behind it, someone who read the market perfectly.”
A strange sense of defeat settled over the office.
They were berating themselves for having let a golden egg slip away through their own incompetence.
Then it happened.
WHIRR-.
The heavy automatic door opened, and Division Head Oh Se-dong appeared, bringing an icy chill with him.
The unsettled office fell silent within a second.
His gaze skimmed the Rubicon articles on his subordinates' desks.
For the briefest instant, a cold look flickered across his impassive face.
“Did you all come to work just to watch someone else's company make money?”
At his low voice, Senior Department Head Song and Manager Lee hurried back to their seats.
He stopped before my desk and looked down at me.
“Baek.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The trash we threw out has come back as a jewel. Thanks to that, the chairman is deeply displeased.”
He continued, staring intently at the employee ID hanging against my chest.
“Come to my office.”