Chapter 28: Coffee Talk and Negotiations

“How’s the coffee? Good, right?”

“Yes, it’s amazing.”

Sitting in a small cafe Michael Dell seemed to have regained his composure.

“So, shall we pick up where we left off? Are you serious about not exercising your shareholder rights?”

“Of course.”

“In perpetuity?”

“Until I decide to sell the shares again.”

He reacted sensitively to the word ‘sell’.

“So you’re saying you have no interest in participating in management.”

“It’s the basics of being an investor. You pull out when you’ve made a satisfactory profit. Right?”

I signaled to Oh Se-hyun and he immediately chimed in.

“That’s right. That’s our job.”

Taking a sip of his coffee Michael looked back and forth between the two of us, then turned back to me and said.

“Then there must be more to your proposal that you haven’t mentioned yet?”

“Are you referring to the preemptive right to acquire shares upon sale?”

Oh Se-hyun quickly interjected. It was obvious that a more in-depth topic was about to come up and he seemed to think he couldn’t leave it to me.

“That’s right James. If you want the capital gains you’ll eventually sell all the shares. But you can’t just dump them on the market, can you? Flooding the market with that many shares would tank the price.”

I couldn’t let Oh Se-hyun dictate the standard terms of the deal. I needed to take the lead in these negotiations.

Sorry Uncle!

“Mike, I’ll give you the priority right to purchase. At the exact market price at that time.”

“Do-jun!”

Startled, Oh Se-hyun blurted out in Korean.

“Sorry, Mike. Just a second.”

He bowed his head slightly, asking for Michael Dell’s understanding.

“Do-jun, this isn’t something to be decided like that. The preemptive right is usually higher than the market price. From a management defense perspective, it’s common to transfer at a higher price than the market value.”

Michael Dell watched Oh Se-hyun’s urgent explanation with an অদ্ভুত smile.

“Hmm, so… it’s true then.”

“What?”

“That this kid, no… that Howard is your boss. I had my suspicions, haha.”

Laughing, Michael Dell set down his coffee cup.

“James, I’ll talk to the boss. Howard seems to be a different breed compared to me 12 years ago. Anyway, the specifics tend to change when you’re making investment contracts, so there’s no need to be anxious in advance, right?”

He was purely curious.

“Howard, this is quite a good deal for me, as James said. You wouldn’t have proposed it without knowing its true meaning, would you?”

“Of course not. Mike, as you just said it’s a pretty good deal. But you wouldn’t just take it as is, would you? It seems like you should throw a good offer my way to balance things out.”

“If the conditions you just mentioned are accurately reflected in the investment contract, I’ll accept as much investment as possible from Miracle Investment. How about that?”

“What does ‘as much as possible’ mean?”

“It’s hard to answer that right now. I need to check the exact numbers.”

It’s over. Success.

The captain of the ship heading to Treasure Island just grabbed my hand and pulled me aboard.

Now all that’s left is to sail smoothly to Treasure Island.

The captain of this ship, Michael Dell, is an excellent captain, so there’s no need to worry about rough waves.

My job is… nothing. Just enjoy the blue sea from the deck.

“We should be having a beer party in times like these, but our major shareholder is too young… Coffee will do?”

Michael Dell raised his coffee cup and I raised mine.

Clink!

An indescribably pleasant sound spread out.

***

On the flight back to New York, Oh Se-hyun, who had been silent for a long time, finally opened his mouth.

“When did you learn English?”

“Three years ago. Grandfather got me an English tutor.”

“A good teacher, it seems. To make you so fluent in English in just three years.”

I nod slightly. He probably knows that chaebol families are serious about early language education, so he doesn’t seem to be asking persistently.

But the real question was about to come.

“But that conversation with Michael. No matter how much I think about it, I can’t just accept it. I tried to understand by thinking you’re just a bright kid, but my head rejects it.”

It must have been hard for him to bring it up, so I decided to be honest.

“Actually, I’m from 30 years in the future, reborn. So… I have the knowledge and thoughts of a 40-year-old adult in my head.”

“Don’t joke around. Sci-fi isn’t my style.”

The judgment of truth lies not with the speaker but with the listener. Since he doesn’t believe the truth, I have no choice but to say what he wants to hear.

“Not funny? Hehe.”

I chuckled and scratched my head.

“Yeah, but that would make sense. If you have the intellectual level of someone in their forties who has been consistently active in the economy, there’s no question. Haha.”

He let out a light laugh, but his expression didn’t look like he was finished.

“I think I mentioned this once before. That my family is being looked down upon…”

“Yes, you did.”

“Since then, I’ve read three newspapers every single day without fail. From the front page to the last. At first, I didn’t understand the content, but I looked up words in the dictionary and kept reading. After about a year, I didn’t need the dictionary anymore.”

Not the dictionary, but every day without fail – that part is true.

“All of it?”

“Yes. I read every stock quote on the financial page, over and over. And I read every single advertisement. I also watched almost all TV news and documentaries, practicing how to connect everything into one big picture… I guess that’s what helped.”

“For three years, every single day?”

“Yes.”

He seemed quite surprised.

Doing something consistently every single day – he knows better than anyone that there’s nothing harder than this. He’s experienced firsthand how difficult it is, given his age.

“That’s impressive, but…”

It wasn’t a satisfactory answer.

“Let’s stop. Maybe it’s something you can’t explain either. What’s more foolish than asking about the source of someone’s talent?”

If you ask a good-looking person why they’re good-looking, they’ll probably say they were born that way. It’s a meaningless question.

Oh Se-hyun smiled at me and asked again.

“So, what do you think when you read the newspapers these days?”

“Construction.”

“Construction?”

“Yes. 90% of the ads are for apartment pre-sales. It must mean they’re making a ton of money selling apartments.”

He probably expected me to ramble on, referencing articles from the financial pages. But the true face of Korea is in the advertisements.

Thirty years later, when economic polarization was the hot topic, the advertisements in newspapers and on TV were dominated by loans and insurance.

Because people were broke, loan ads were rampant. Because the future was uncertain, insurance ads were everywhere.

Right now, apartments have swallowed up everything in Korea.

“But, Uncle. Do you know what’s interesting?”

“What?”

The smile had disappeared from Oh Se-hyun’s face, replaced by a look of anticipation.

“Construction companies’ stock prices don’t match the volume of their ads.”

“Do you know what that means?”

“I think… they’re siphoning it all off into slush funds.”

“What? Slush funds? Do you even know what a slush fund is?”

“Uncle! You think I wouldn’t know that? Slush fund was the most frequently mentioned term during last year’s hearings. You’re underestimating me.”

Reaching a conclusion based on scattered elements is insight.

Insight solidifies through the accumulation of knowledge and wisdom. It requires physical time, but skipping this process can only be attributed to being born with it.

Oh Se-hyun stared at me as if he were looking at a strange creature and I responded to his gaze.

“Grandfather meets with the president of Soonyang Construction very often. I’ve heard them talking a lot… mostly about money. They often mentioned foreign banks. That’s when I realized that construction companies were amassing money into slush funds.”

A child who has seen and heard the reality of slush funds firsthand.

Oh Se-hyun’s suspicious look didn’t disappear, but he didn’t say anything more.

But he probably won’t take his hawk eyes off me, trying to figure out who I really am.

* * *

As soon as we arrived in New York, Oh Se-hyun dropped off his luggage at the hotel and rushed back to the company.

“I’m going to be a bit busy until the investment agreement is finalized. I’ll keep the terms as we discussed and try to raise the investment amount as much as possible. But I think he’ll refuse the full fifteen million dollars. What should we do with the remaining funds?”

“Uncle, why don’t you consult with your staff and suggest some good investment options? I can decide after seeing that.”

“Let’s do that.”

Reporting and deciding. It had become the norm now.

Oh Se-hyun asked for my mother’s understanding.

“Sister-in-law, I have some business to attend to, so I won’t be able to accompany you anymore. Is that okay?”

“Oh, yes. The guide is taking such good care of us, there’s no problem. Go take care of your work.”

Left with only our family, my mother’s curiosity was evident. She asked casually.

“How was Texas? Was the weather nice?”

“The weather is unpredictable, but it was nice for the past two days. They said we were lucky.”

“What about that investment thing?”

“Oh, I just watched Uncle work. It was a bit boring.”

“Okay. Then from now on, let’s go see some nice things and eat delicious food with Mom. How about that?”

“Yes. But where’s Older brother?”

“Go to his room. It’s quite a sight.”

The special suite consisted of a living room and three rooms. I knocked on Sang-joon’s door and went in. It really was quite a sight.

Dozens of CDs and LPs were piled on the bed and there was even a CD player on the nightstand.

In 1986, SKC (Sunkyong Chemical Co., Ltd.), in a technology partnership with Philips, released the first domestically produced compact discs. In November of that year, the first CD album, consisting of Korean songs, was released. However, it wasn’t yet a widely available product.

It seems like Sang-joon’s goal for this trip was to sweep up unreleased albums in Korea.

Although he’s a discarded branch of the chaebol family, his spending habits were astonishing. A kid just casually bought a CD player that cost more than several months’ salary for an office worker.

In a family overflowing with money, he doesn’t know the value of it. If he doesn’t learn the value of money, he’ll surely become a delinquent chaebol heir, scorned by society.

If this guy gets looked down upon, I might get caught in the crossfire, so I need to do some mental remodeling.

Sang-joon was lost in his music, with headphones on, oblivious to me entering and leaving the room.

After that, I spent three days with my mother exploring New York.

Along with London’s Oxford Street, Paris’ Champs-Élysées and Milan’s Via Monte Napoleone, 5th Avenue, which runs through the heart of New York, is considered one of the world’s shopping meccas.

My mother did a lot of shopping here and didn’t hesitate to spend a fortune.

She receives a sufficient living allowance, but not enough to buy such luxury goods without hesitation.

She must have sold the land in Ilsan. I wonder how much she made?

* * *

“He returned today?”

“Yes.”

“Did you find out what he did in the US?”

“The New York branch confirmed that it was all sightseeing and shopping. Oh Se-hyun and Do-jun were away for a day, but they couldn’t figure out that part.”

“Those two were away for a day?”

At Chief of Staff Lee Hak-jae’s report, Chairman Jin’s eyebrows twitched.

“If it was just Do-jun’s family, I’d think it was a trip, but that guy Oh Se-hyun went with them. This isn’t sightseeing. It’s a business trip.”

It’s clear that he’s looking for investment opportunities in the US through an asset management company called PowerShares.

Lee Hak-jae seemed to know why Chairman Jin frowned.

If the money circulates in the US, he loses control. Chairman Jin never tolerates things he can’t control.

“I’ll look into it further.”

“Accurately. And quickly.”

“Yes.”

Lee Hak-jae started to read Chairman Jin’s mood again. He had a more difficult report to deliver.

“Sir.”

“What? Why are you so hesitant?”

Sensing something unusual in Lee Hak-jae’s expression, he put down the report he was holding.

“It’s about Yoon-ki.”

“What about Yoon-ki?”

“He’s currently establishing a film production company.”

“What? A movie?”

“Yes. It’s almost finalized. He’ll probably start production next year. He’s planning to produce two films simultaneously…”

“Don’t tell me… it’s Do-jun’s money?”

Chairman Jin’s voice gradually rose.