Mid-October 1997.
Morning in Taeseong Group's Strategic Planning Office began as it always did, with acrid cigarette smoke and the irritable ringing of telephones.
But the atmosphere around my desk was distinctly different from the day before.
Only yesterday, Manager Oh had treated me like an errand boy and thrown folders at me.
Now he merely cleared his throat and watched my reactions.
It was only natural. The office's actual approval chain had been reshaped to run directly between Department Head Park and me.
Just then, Assistant Manager Lee, the senior assigned to train me, poked his head over the partition.
"Baek Do-jin. The department head wants you. Go and see him."
"Yes, understood."
Every gaze in the office turned toward me.
I rose at my leisure and headed to the department head's office.
After a light knock, I opened the door and entered.
"You wanted to see me, sir?"
"Yes, you're here. Sit down."
Department Head Park gestured toward the seat in front of him with his chin and began.
"About the risks in Taeseong Construction's subcontracting network that you reported yesterday. The people upstairs are quite interested."
He ground his cigarette into the ashtray and stared intently at me.
His cold gaze held a mixture of curiosity and wariness.
It was probably because the crisis scenario had been too sophisticated to seem like the work of a new employee.
"Figures on paper alone are not enough, sir."
I slid a document I had prepared onto his desk.
"Jinsan Construction. It is a key subcontractor responsible for 80% of Taeseong Construction's civil engineering work."
"It appears sound on the surface, but from what I have learned, its short-term liquidity is under severe strain. If it collapses, there is a serious risk that all of Taeseong Construction's work for the second half of the year will grind to a halt."
Of course, my real purpose was not to save them.
In exactly one month, when national default was declared and the exchange rate soared, I intended to swallow this valuable company whole after it was put up for sale at a pittance. This was the groundwork.
I needed the pretext of an 'on-site inspection' to legally probe its inner workings.
"So you want to inspect the site yourself?"
"Yes. Please issue an official notice from the Strategic Planning Office for a 'Potential Risk Review.'"
I drove the point home in a flat but firm voice.
"I need to examine the books on-site and check the cash flow myself to devise a flawless response scenario."
Department Head Park tapped his desk with his fingers, apparently weighing the matter.
At the time, a conglomerate's Strategic Planning Office was practically the Grim Reaper to its subcontractors.
Even a rumor that its most junior employee was coming would send the presidents of midsize companies rushing out in their socks to greet them.
"All right. I will approve the inspection notice immediately."
Department Head Park nodded gravely.
"But bring back solid results."
"Do not worry, sir. I will bring back more 'certainty' than you could ask for."
A few hours later,
I arrived at Jinsan Construction's headquarters in Gangnam.
It was a respectable midsize company's office building, clad in polished marble, but I saw something different.
A vast heap of wastepaper that would flood the auction market for next to nothing in a month. That was all it was.
"My goodness, someone from the Strategic Planning Office at Taeseong Group headquarters has come in person! What an honor."
President Choi of Jinsan Construction smiled obsequiously and offered me premium green tea he had brewed himself.
Beside him, the financial executives stood in a row, fidgeting nervously.
I was only in my early twenties.
But the Taeseong Group Strategic Planning Office ID on my chest was no different from the nameplate of King Yama himself, with their lives and deaths in his hands.
"I appreciate your efforts, President Choi. But I do not think we have time to sit back and drink tea."
I coldly pushed away the offered cup.
Then I took a thin file from my briefcase and tossed it onto the conference table.
"Let us get to the point. The six-month promissory notes you received from Taeseong Construction total forty-five billion won. Is that correct?"
Confusion flickered across President Choi's face.
He had probably assumed this would be a routine inspection and planned merely to entertain me.
No wonder he was rattled when I went straight for his Achilles' heel.
"Ah, yes. That is correct, but…… Since Jinsan handles so much of Taeseong Construction's core civil engineering work……."
"And the short-term borrowing you obtained from merchant banks using those notes as collateral exceeds thirty billion won."
I cut mercilessly through his faltering excuse.
Leaning against the table at an angle, I fixed him with an arrogant stare.
"What happens if Taeseong Construction delays payment on those notes next month? Jinsan Construction will default that very day, despite being profitable."
"Come now, Mr. Baek. You take your jokes too far."
The managing director of finance wiped away cold sweat and forced a laugh.
"We are talking about Taeseong. It is indisputably South Korea's largest conglomerate, is it not? Delaying payment? That is utterly unthinkable."
It was the blind faith typical of 1997.
The foolish, naive belief that major corporations could never fail, and that an ever-growing economy would smooth over every crisis.
I gave a faint snort.
"Does being the country's largest conglomerate make cash fall out of thin air?"
"Pardon?"
"Does Jinsan's finance team not even receive reports that merchant banks are running out of foreign currency funds and refusing loan extensions?"
"T-that is only a temporary liquidity squeeze. The government says our economic fundamentals are sound……."
"Running a company on blind faith in government announcements is precisely why you are in this state."
SLAP-!
I struck the table hard and lowered my voice to an icy register.
"I examined Taeseong Construction's financial statements. Its defenses against short-term external debt are already on the verge of collapse. If the exchange rate rises even slightly, the head office will freeze payments on subcontractors' promissory notes first."
President Choi and his executives turned ashen in an instant.
The bombshell that 'headquarters funding was collapsing' had come directly from a Strategic Planning Office employee.
They could never have imagined that this provocation was the product of my meticulous calculations and knowledge of the future.
"Now, enough of the games."
I tapped my wristwatch.
"Not the window-dressed books you submitted to headquarters. Bring me the second set of books showing your real cash flow, your partner companies' unit price lists, and a list of your prime real estate holdings. All of it."
"Mr. Baek! Even so, that is far too unreasonable a demand……!"
"Are you refusing to bring them?"
I twisted the corners of my mouth upward and delivered the final blow.
"First thing tomorrow morning, I will classify Jinsan Construction as a 'High-Risk Company Facing Imminent Default' and have all Taeseong Construction's civil engineering work withdrawn from you. Shall I cut off your air before those notes even mature?"
President Choi's lips trembled.
Such was the tyranny of 'Taeseong's Strategic Planning Office,' the party with absolute bargaining power. A subcontractor had no way to resist it.
At last, President Choi bowed his head as though collapsing.
"……I-I will bring them."
A short while later, my briefcase was filled with top-secret documents detailing all of Jinsan Construction's dirty secrets and valuable assets.
In one month, when its funding dried up and it was put up for sale at a pittance, these would be a lethal recipe for stripping every last morsel from its bones at the lowest possible cost.
'Excellent.'
I left Jinsan Construction's headquarters carrying my now-heavy briefcase.
Even its most closely guarded weaknesses were firmly in my hands.
On my way back to headquarters in Yeouido, the streets, where the leaves were beginning to turn, looked utterly peaceful.
Office workers' faces were filled with anticipation of their year-end bonuses and blind faith in an economy that could never collapse.
Leaving those foolish, naive crowds behind, I entered the headquarters elevator with an expressionless face.
As soon as I reached the Strategic Planning Office, I headed straight to the department head's room.
Department Head Park scanned Jinsan Construction's 'real books' and smiled in satisfaction.
"Good work, Baek. This much data will be more than enough to convince the people upstairs. For now, we should delay payments to Jinsan Construction as much as possible and take a conservative approach."
"Yes, sir. I will make every preparation so that we can cut them loose at any time without harming headquarters' funding."
Department Head Park nodded contentedly, as though he had acquired a loyal hound.
I bowed with impeccable courtesy and left his office.
The moment the door closed, the obliging office worker's smile on my lips evaporated into coldness.
'There is a reason I spoon-fed him even the real books and made such a show of loyalty.'
If I had gone poking around Jinsan Construction from outside as a mere new employee, I would have been put in handcuffs for industrial espionage or blackmail on the spot.
But things were different when I draped myself in the tiger's skin of 'Taeseong's Strategic Planning Office.'
All this robbery was perfectly disguised as 'legal risk management' for the company.
Most satisfying of all,
I could cut off my target's air in a single stroke without getting a drop of blood on my hands.
Having seen the real books, Department Head Park would do everything in his power to block payment on Jinsan Construction's promissory notes and protect headquarters' funds.
Then, when Jinsan Construction defaulted despite being profitable and was thrown onto the market for less than wastepaper, all I had to do was take out the dollars I had fattened up in my pocket and elegantly scoop up that valuable corpse.
Time passed without mercy.
The calendar pages turned indifferently, and people began taking out their heavy coats as the weather grew decidedly colder.
Then came the fateful days of late November 1997.
At last, the market's festering abscess burst.
Merchant banks closed their shutters one after another, and with funding cut off, the exchange rate began convulsing wildly.
All of South Korea had crossed the threshold into an immense hell.
At Taeseong Group headquarters, in the Strategic Planning Office, every employee stared at the television mounted on one wall.
[BREAKING NEWS] Government Announces Official Application for an International Monetary Fund (IMF) Bailout
National default.
It was the official death sentence pronounced on South Korea's economy.
"W-what…… What the hell does that mean?"
"The IMF? The country's gone bankrupt? The government said there was nothing wrong!"
The Strategic Planning Office became a living hell of pandemonium.
Cries of despair erupted everywhere, and dozens of telephones began ringing at once as though seized by convulsions.
"Hey! Contact Construction right now and make sure they cover every promissory note coming due! Tell them to scrape together all the short-term funds they can!"
"What about the other affiliates?!"
"Deal with this first!"
Furious shouts erupted from every direction, and the office descended into chaos in an instant.
But it was already too late.
Commercial banks and merchant banks were ruthlessly cutting off corporate funding to save themselves.
It was only a matter of time before subcontractors, their cash flow severed, began failing one after another.
Amid it all, Manager Oh stared blankly at his monitor, his shoulders trembling like a leaf.
On the sickly blue screen, the KOSPI index plunged relentlessly, hitting its lower limit.
"No…… My stocks…… The final payment on my apartment……."
He was not the only one.
Jeong Min-jae, who had scraped together every last won and poured it into Jinsan Construction shares, blindly trusting in endless growth, the same man who had cheerfully talked about buying a Grandeur early next year, was now slumped over his desk, sobbing uncontrollably.
The entire office floundered in utter panic like the sinking Titanic.
But I leaned back comfortably in my chair and quietly savored this grand symphony of ruin.
My gaze was not on the deathly blue stock market window.
It was fixed on the 'Foreign Exchange Market' display I had opened in a small corner of my screen.
[Won/Dollar Exchange Rate: 1,150 Won (▲ 10.5%)]
The exchange rate had already smashed through the psychological barrier of 1,000 won and was surging almost vertically.
The graph was soaring not merely by the day, but in real time.
The closer the market's terror came to its limit, the more my dollar holdings swelled exponentially.
A broad smile spread across my lips.
'This is only the beginning.'