Mr. Chu made a perplexed expression.
“To be honest, I have no idea why you hate DonStar so much. Of course, DonStar’s act is hateful, but its takeover and sale of Korea Exchange Bank is the result of its legal business activities. I think it’s okay to precaution them against their act, but it is not right to exclude foreign funds like DonStar from the investment candidates.”
Hyunwoo felt his words were ludicrous. Chu would not have said that if he had realized the truth of DonStar’s takeover.
“Do you think DonStar’s takeover of Korea Exchange Bank was legal?”
“I heard there was nothing illegal in their takeover.”
Hyunwoo shook his head and briefed him what kind of illegal activities DonStar was involved in.
The biggest cause of the collapse of Korea Exchange Bank was the lack of its working capital as its stocks crashed after the IMF crisis broke.
At that time, DonStar was caught manipulating the stock prices of Korea Exchange Bank. When its stocks bottomed out, DonStar took over the bank for cheap.
In that process, they made as much as 2 trillion won in profits.
And then they sold it back to its parent bank in Korea. DonStar took over Korea Exchange Bank for 1.38 trillion won, but sold it over 6 trillion won. In short, the profits they took amounted to 4.6 trillion won.
“Of course, we don’t have to argue over the profits of any company in the process of taking over and selling back. That’s their legitimate business activities. But it’s a different story if there is a problem in that process,” said Hyunwoo.
Hyunwoo continued, “There is a saying that see one and you’ve seen them all. OneStar might be a clean and sincere fund, and it could make a tremendous contribution to Nanotech’s development. But if we look at the bad activities they did behind the scenes, they could do it again. I don’t want to work with such a company.”
Chu nodded his head and said, “Thanks for saying that. Let me go back and think a little more about our deal with OneStar.”
“I am sorry. I would like to invest in Nanotech, but I don’t want my investment to generate profits for OneStar and DonStar. I wish you good luck.”
Chu quickly waved his hand at his remarks and said, “We have not yet signed a contract with OneStar. We just exchanged our opinion verbally. If OneStar is such a bad fund as you said, I don’t have any intention to attract their investment.”
Chu’s party left the KOVE DREAM office.
It was two days later Mr. Chu contacted Hyunwoo again.
He said in an excited voice, “I would have been in big trouble without you. I never knew DonStar was such a bad fund.”
“Are you not going to attract their investment then?”
“Of course not. We already notified them of our decision. They were pretty surprised. They even threatened us, saying they would make us feel sorry for our decision.”
Hyunwoo curled his lips. He had a bad impression of DonStar, but when he heard from Chu about their mean act, he felt DonStar was really despicable.
There was nothing to worry about, Hyunwoo thought. As long as Nanotech had excellent technology and competence, there was nothing to worry about the revenge of a foreign fund.
Hyunwoo said confidently, “Let me tell you that KOVE DREAM will be investing 10 billion won that OneStar originally promised.”
“If that’s the case, let me transfer the stake we promised to OneStar to you. I’ll come and see you as soon as I make a contract draft.”
Several days later, Hyunsang Chu visited KOVE DREAM again.
Hyunwoo carefully reviewed the contract. As he already agreed with Chu on the contents of the contract, there was nothing special for him to revise.
After they signed the contract, Hyun and Chu shook hands strongly.
“If you have any difficulty, please let me know anytime. KOVE DREAM and Nanotech are now one family.”
“Thank you. I’ll make sure you feel good about your decision to invest in Nanotech.”
Chu was a very shrewd businessman. When he secured the necessary funds, he immediately proceeded with the pending business projects.
The new factory site was inside Sokmun Industrial Complex in Dangjin, South Chungchong Province. He directed the construction of the factory on a vast lot of 7,000-pyong (2.3 ha).
Chu also called Hyunwoo every weekend to report about the status of business just like a subordinate reporting to his boss.
Sometimes Hyunwoo visited the construction site to check its progress. As it was not far from Ansan, where KOVE DREAM was located, he would drive to that place for a break when he couldn’t think straight.
In the meantime, there was a stream of people knocking on the door of the KOVE office. Some of them were toy technicians, home appliances technicians, quarts vibrator technicians and latex technicians.
Even after massive investment in NanoTech, Hyunwoo still had plenty of funds. He promised to invest 20 billion won in that company, but the funds would be allocated in installments over time, so it wouldn’t be a big financial burden. Above all, Ani & Funny and KOVE DREAM were making a lot of money.
Whenever he received requests for investment, Hyunwoo positively and prudently reviewed such requests. When he felt confident, he freely made investments in the companies involved.
The more revenues his companies received, the more he thought about how to use the money.
Where can I invest all this money?
He could not thoughtlessly invest in those companies whose confidence he could not verify.
After all, he decided to invest in the students.
He expanded the offices of Ani & Funny by opening two more in Seoul, one each in Pusan, Daegu, Daejon and Kwangju.
Each office had 20-40 regular staff and 40-80 students.
It was not a simple expansion in quantity.
Hyunwoo emphasized the diversity of customers. Currently, the main consumers of Ani & Funny were elementary school kids and below, but he took all kinds of support programs aimed at expanding the target consumers to teens and adults.
He also increased investments in its foreign branches.
The Vietnam branch had 100 regular staff and over 700 student reserves. The branches in India and China were taking their cue from the Vietnam branch, hiring more people gradually.
Haenim School began to look more like a full-fledged regular school. Lots of outside guests visited the school for special lectures and the college tutors were changed several times to meet the demands of the students.
What Hyunwoo felt lacking was that the school had only 50 students for now.
Of course, Hyunwoo didn’t refuse to accept more students. He wanted to keep accepting them if he could, but the problem was the school had no more space. It was already packed with 50 students.
He had to build more buildings to accept more. He needed a lot for this and continued to search for a lot near the school.
But the landowners nearby would not sell their lots. Some offered to sell, but they simply tried to sell at too high a price, even five times as high as the normal price.
Let me try to find an alternative.
Hyunwoo didn’t need to find a lot in Ansan. As long as the location was good, he had no problem with buying it. Duyoung and Taeho began to search for one after they heard about Hyunwoo’s headache on this.
Sometime later, Taeho brought him good news.
“I got a call from a National Assemblyman in Taean, my hometown, that he wanted to invite your school. Won’t you meet him?”
Hyunwoo had no reason to avoid the Assemblyman.
“Sure. Do I need go to Taean?”
“No, you don’t have to. I’m supposed to see him in Ansan this weekend. Let’s meet together if you can.”
“Do you know him well?”
“Haha, he is my junior in my hometown.”
Hyunwoo felt it’s a good thing to see the Assemblyman. He felt like he might solve the problem related to the expansion of Haenim School.
The next afternoon he noticed a strange phone number on his cell phone.
“Hello. My name is Hanjong Park, an assistant working for Assemblyman Chulwoo Chung. Do you know him? His constituency is Sosan City…”
He has never heard of that Assemblyman before.
Come to think of it, he didn’t know any Assemblyman except for the local politicians in Ansan or Hwasung.
Though he had some good personal connections, Hyunwoo didn’t meet them on a regular basis. One politician that he met most was the mayor of Ansan, who he had met five or six times so far.
And it was usually the mayor, not Hyunwoo, who offered to meet first.
It was the same with other local politicians that Hyunwoo met.
In some respects, they might have felt displeased with him. Though Hyunwoo had no intention to mooch off them for his success, he felt there would be nothing beneficial if he behaved detestably to them.
I think I have to maintain good connections with them from now on.
For this, he thought it might be good to treat them to dinner sometimes or send gifts to their families.
While he was thinking about that, that assistant brought up the main topic.
“My Assemblyman wants to meet you. Are you available tomorrow evening?”
“Yes, I am. Can I see him in Seoul?”
“No, he is going to come to see you. How about a dinner meeting from 7-9 pm?”
“That sounds good. Let me treat him.”
Mr. Chu made a perplexed expression.
“To be honest, I have no idea why you hate DonStar so much. Of course, DonStar’s act is hateful, but its takeover and sale of Korea Exchange Bank is the result of its legal business activities. I think it’s okay to precaution them against their act, but it is not right to exclude foreign funds like DonStar from the investment candidates.”
Hyunwoo felt his words were ludicrous. Chu would not have said that if he had realized the truth of DonStar’s takeover.
“Do you think DonStar’s takeover of Korea Exchange Bank was legal?”
“I heard there was nothing illegal in their takeover.”
Hyunwoo shook his head and briefed him what kind of illegal activities DonStar was involved in.
The biggest cause of the collapse of Korea Exchange Bank was the lack of its working capital as its stocks crashed after the IMF crisis broke.
At that time, DonStar was caught manipulating the stock prices of Korea Exchange Bank. When its stocks bottomed out, DonStar took over the bank for cheap.
In that process, they made as much as 2 trillion won in profits.
And then they sold it back to its parent bank in Korea. DonStar took over Korea Exchange Bank for 1.38 trillion won, but sold it over 6 trillion won. In short, the profits they took amounted to 4.6 trillion won.
“Of course, we don’t have to argue over the profits of any company in the process of taking over and selling back. That’s their legitimate business activities. But it’s a different story if there is a problem in that process,” said Hyunwoo.
Hyunwoo continued, “There is a saying that see one and you’ve seen them all. OneStar might be a clean and sincere fund, and it could make a tremendous contribution to Nanotech’s development. But if we look at the bad activities they did behind the scenes, they could do it again. I don’t want to work with such a company.”
Chu nodded his head and said, “Thanks for saying that. Let me go back and think a little more about our deal with OneStar.”
“I am sorry. I would like to invest in Nanotech, but I don’t want my investment to generate profits for OneStar and DonStar. I wish you good luck.”
Chu quickly waved his hand at his remarks and said, “We have not yet signed a contract with OneStar. We just exchanged our opinion verbally. If OneStar is such a bad fund as you said, I don’t have any intention to attract their investment.”
Chu’s party left the KOVE DREAM office.
It was two days later Mr. Chu contacted Hyunwoo again.
He said in an excited voice, “I would have been in big trouble without you. I never knew DonStar was such a bad fund.”
“Are you not going to attract their investment then?”
“Of course not. We already notified them of our decision. They were pretty surprised. They even threatened us, saying they would make us feel sorry for our decision.”
Hyunwoo curled his lips. He had a bad impression of DonStar, but when he heard from Chu about their mean act, he felt DonStar was really despicable.
There was nothing to worry about, Hyunwoo thought. As long as Nanotech had excellent technology and competence, there was nothing to worry about the revenge of a foreign fund.
Hyunwoo said confidently, “Let me tell you that KOVE DREAM will be investing 10 billion won that OneStar originally promised.”
“If that’s the case, let me transfer the stake we promised to OneStar to you. I’ll come and see you as soon as I make a contract draft.”
Several days later, Hyunsang Chu visited KOVE DREAM again.
Hyunwoo carefully reviewed the contract. As he already agreed with Chu on the contents of the contract, there was nothing special for him to revise.
After they signed the contract, Hyun and Chu shook hands strongly.
“If you have any difficulty, please let me know anytime. KOVE DREAM and Nanotech are now one family.”
“Thank you. I’ll make sure you feel good about your decision to invest in Nanotech.”
Chu was a very shrewd businessman. When he secured the necessary funds, he immediately proceeded with the pending business projects.
The new factory site was inside Sokmun Industrial Complex in Dangjin, South Chungchong Province. He directed the construction of the factory on a vast lot of 7,000-pyong (2.3 ha).
Chu also called Hyunwoo every weekend to report about the status of business just like a subordinate reporting to his boss.
Sometimes Hyunwoo visited the construction site to check its progress. As it was not far from Ansan, where KOVE DREAM was located, he would drive to that place for a break when he couldn’t think straight.
In the meantime, there was a stream of people knocking on the door of the KOVE office. Some of them were toy technicians, home appliances technicians, quarts vibrator technicians and latex technicians.
Even after massive investment in NanoTech, Hyunwoo still had plenty of funds. He promised to invest 20 billion won in that company, but the funds would be allocated in installments over time, so it wouldn’t be a big financial burden. Above all, Ani & Funny and KOVE DREAM were making a lot of money.
Whenever he received requests for investment, Hyunwoo positively and prudently reviewed such requests. When he felt confident, he freely made investments in the companies involved.
The more revenues his companies received, the more he thought about how to use the money.
Where can I invest all this money?
He could not thoughtlessly invest in those companies whose confidence he could not verify.
After all, he decided to invest in the students.
He expanded the offices of Ani & Funny by opening two more in Seoul, one each in Pusan, Daegu, Daejon and Kwangju.
Each office had 20-40 regular staff and 40-80 students.
It was not a simple expansion in quantity.
Hyunwoo emphasized the diversity of customers. Currently, the main consumers of Ani & Funny were elementary school kids and below, but he took all kinds of support programs aimed at expanding the target consumers to teens and adults.
He also increased investments in its foreign branches.
The Vietnam branch had 100 regular staff and over 700 student reserves. The branches in India and China were taking their cue from the Vietnam branch, hiring more people gradually.
Haenim School began to look more like a full-fledged regular school. Lots of outside guests visited the school for special lectures and the college tutors were changed several times to meet the demands of the students.
What Hyunwoo felt lacking was that the school had only 50 students for now.
Of course, Hyunwoo didn’t refuse to accept more students. He wanted to keep accepting them if he could, but the problem was the school had no more space. It was already packed with 50 students.
He had to build more buildings to accept more. He needed a lot for this and continued to search for a lot near the school.
But the landowners nearby would not sell their lots. Some offered to sell, but they simply tried to sell at too high a price, even five times as high as the normal price.
Let me try to find an alternative.
Hyunwoo didn’t need to find a lot in Ansan. As long as the location was good, he had no problem with buying it. Duyoung and Taeho began to search for one after they heard about Hyunwoo’s headache on this.
Sometime later, Taeho brought him good news.
“I got a call from a National Assemblyman in Taean, my hometown, that he wanted to invite your school. Won’t you meet him?”
Hyunwoo had no reason to avoid the Assemblyman.
“Sure. Do I need go to Taean?”
“No, you don’t have to. I’m supposed to see him in Ansan this weekend. Let’s meet together if you can.”
“Do you know him well?”
“Haha, he is my junior in my hometown.”
Hyunwoo felt it’s a good thing to see the Assemblyman. He felt like he might solve the problem related to the expansion of Haenim School.
The next afternoon he noticed a strange phone number on his cell phone.
“Hello. My name is Hanjong Park, an assistant working for Assemblyman Chulwoo Chung. Do you know him? His constituency is Sosan City…”
He has never heard of that Assemblyman before.
Come to think of it, he didn’t know any Assemblyman except for the local politicians in Ansan or Hwasung.
Though he had some good personal connections, Hyunwoo didn’t meet them on a regular basis. One politician that he met most was the mayor of Ansan, who he had met five or six times so far.
And it was usually the mayor, not Hyunwoo, who offered to meet first.
It was the same with other local politicians that Hyunwoo met.
In some respects, they might have felt displeased with him. Though Hyunwoo had no intention to mooch off them for his success, he felt there would be nothing beneficial if he behaved detestably to them.
I think I have to maintain good connections with them from now on.
For this, he thought it might be good to treat them to dinner sometimes or send gifts to their families.
While he was thinking about that, that assistant brought up the main topic.
“My Assemblyman wants to meet you. Are you available tomorrow evening?”
“Yes, I am. Can I see him in Seoul?”
“No, he is going to come to see you. How about a dinner meeting from 7-9 pm?”
“That sounds good. Let me treat him.”
