Golden Spoon Investment Portfolio - Chapter 256

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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256. I’ve completed all the setup as you instructed.

[Midopa Department Store 72,210 ▲ 1,040]

Jung Hwan-yeop, sitting at his desk with his shirt sleeves rolled up, shook his head as he watched the stock price window displayed on the monitor.

“I thought it might stall briefly at the opening, but it’s already broken through 72,000 won.”

Yu Seok-hyun poked his head over the partition that reached to his waist, apparently having heard the muttered remark.

“With buy orders continuing to pour in, if things go well today, we might even break through 73,000 won.”

At that, Hong Jae-hee, who had her hair tied back today with a gleaming hairpin for accent, joined the conversation.

“We’ve already exceeded the public acquisition price announced by Donghae Group. Surely it won’t go higher than this?”

Since the stock had already surpassed the public acquisition price announced by Donghae Group, it seemed natural that the buying pressure would ease.
But seeing no sign of that whatsoever, Yu Seok-hyun’s words didn’t sound entirely implausible.
Jung Hwan-yeop scratched his head with the Monami ballpoint pen in his hand and spoke.

“By the book, the momentum should fade here, but there’s still hope lingering. Just as Deputy Manager Yu said, we might break through 73,000 won.”
“You’re saying there’s anticipation that we’ll raise the public acquisition price again, right?”
“Exactly. Now it feels like we’re finally getting some return on all the groundwork we’ve laid.”

Jung Hwan-yeop wore a teasing expression as he chuckled.
At that, Yu Seok-hyun, with his bear-like build, let out a sullen complaint with a pouty face.

“I think I was just cleaning up after you, not being raised by you.”
“What? After all the meals and drinks I’ve bought you, you’re betraying me now? This is why they say you shouldn’t trust people with black hair.”

Jung Hwan-yeop expressed his hurt feelings with his entire body, clearly playing up the offense.
It was obvious to anyone that he was trying to be playful, so Yu Seok-hyun and Hong Jae-hee exchanged glances simultaneously with awkward expressions.

‘What do we do?’
‘What can we do? Let’s just leave him be.’

At that moment, Jung Hwan-yeop turned his head at the sound of someone clicking their tongue behind him.

“What is it? Who——.”

Choi Ho-geun, wearing a purple necktie, had emerged from a separately prepared office and was regarding him with a look of utter disdain.

“That’s right. Every time I see you, I think the same thing. That we shouldn’t have taken in a black-haired beast like you.”
“Hehe. When did you come out, sir?”

Jung Hwan-yeop quickly bowed his head and fawned.

“I saw everything—you not doing your work and slacking off with the kids. Why?”
“Slacking off? We were having a very constructive and sincere conversation about the future prospects of Midopa Department Store’s stock price!”
“Sure. Very constructive indeed.”

Choi Ho-geun pressed his forehead with a troubled expression, deep wrinkles etched between his brows.
With this manager being the first to muddy the waters of the office, his headaches would never cease.

“Good grief. I’m telling you, I’m aging by the day because of you. Look at this. I’ve even got wrinkles on my forehead now.”
“Isn’t that just a natural phenomenon from getting older? In crude terms, it’s called aging——.”
“This is ridiculous!”

Still unable to come to his senses and persisting with his cheeky attitude, Choi Ho-geun raised his eyebrows.

“Given the situation, I was trying to stay quiet, but this is really something. Fine, let’s settle this properly today.”

With that, Choi Ho-geun rolled up his shirt sleeves with an air of confidence.
Genuinely furious—ready to beat him until dust flew on a rainy day—Jung Hwan-yeop leaped up and clung to his arm desperately.

“Hey. I was joking, joking!”
“You. Let go. Won’t you?”
“Are you going through menopause or something? Why are you so angry lately?”
“What. Menopause?”

Choi Ho-geun, gripping the back of his neck and swaying, glared at Jung Hwan-yeop.

‘Oh dear.’
‘Is that what he’s saying? He’s not deliberately provoking him?’
‘Surprisingly, Manager Jung seems to be serious.’

Yu Seok-hyun and Hong Jae-hee, both pretending to work diligently with their noses buried in their monitors to avoid any stray sparks of trouble, shook their heads inwardly.
It seemed the office was going to be quite noisy today because of Jung Hwan-yeop, who couldn’t distinguish between when he should keep his mouth shut and when he shouldn’t.

“Did you just say I’m going through menopause?”

Every time I looked at my thinning hair—losing more strands each day from the already excessive stress—it was far from a trivial matter.
But hearing the word menopause made a surge of anger well up inside me.

“Yeah, you spoke well. You’re the one taking up most of my stress, aren’t you!”
“Come on, it’s not that bad.”
“So let’s see if this works or not—why don’t we two have a sincere conversation about it?”

Choi Ho-geun, the department head, ground his teeth and shook his fist menacingly.
Only then did Jung Hwan-yeop, sensing the danger, cautiously lower his body in appeasement.

“Come on. Why are you like this? You know I love you, sir.”

At the sight of him making a heart with his hands and displaying such nauseating aegyo, Choi Ho-geun’s expression hardened sharply.

“I don’t want that kind of love.”

At the firm rejection, Jung Hwan-yeop’s face fell, but no one paid him any attention.

“Ahem. Well, that aside. It’s already Tuesday now—is it really okay to just do nothing like this?”

Jung Hwan-yeop cleared his throat awkwardly and subtly changed the subject.
His scheme to slip away like an eel to avoid getting scolded was painfully obvious, but Choi Ho-geun simply let his eyes glide past and pretended to be fooled anyway.

“What do you mean we’re doing nothing? We’ve been steadily buying Midopa Department Store shares this whole time.”
“Come on, we’ve only bought a little over ten thousand shares?”
“Isn’t that still buying?”
“But even after declaring the public acquisition offer, the volume that Donghae Group has been buying on the market must be several times more than that, so compared to that, it’s way too little.”

Then Yu Seok-hyun, turning in his chair, looked at the two of them and spoke.

“As Manager Jung said, there isn’t a huge volume of selling pressure, but there are still quite a few sell orders above 70,000 won. Honestly, I can’t quite understand why we’re moving so lukewarmly instead of buying aggressively.”
“Me neither. It’s not like we don’t have the funds in our account, right?”

Even Hong Jae-hee, who rarely voiced her opinions, chimed in.
The trading account for the Daeheung Venture Capital Fund Management Department opened at Daehung Securities held a staggering 160 billion won—combining the billion won sent from the textile division with the additional funds Seok-won had recently injected.
Yet despite holding such a massive sum, they were barely touching it, simply letting it sit idle, which naturally raised questions.
Choi Ho-geun had heard about it from Seok-won a few days prior, but since the timing wasn’t right, he couldn’t let it slip from his lips, so he subtly averted his gaze to the side.

“The chairman must have something else in mind.”

Then Jung Hwan-yeop, sharp-eyed as always, narrowed his eyes and asked.

“Something’s off….”
“What is it?”
“Is there something you know that we don’t?”

Choi Ho-geun inwardly clicked his tongue in frustration.

‘Of all times, why does this guy have to be so annoyingly perceptive now?’

It was a mystery why his instincts only kicked in when they were utterly unnecessary.

“What would I know?”

Choi Ho-geun put on a completely clueless expression, playing dumb.
But Jung Hwan-yeop wasn’t easily fooled and instead gave him an even more suspicious look.

“Doesn’t seem like it.”

Growing impatient for an answer, Choi Ho-geun suddenly burst out in exasperation.

“Stop asking pointless questions and just get back to work!”

But it backfired instead—Jung Hwan-yeop’s curiosity was now fully ignited, and he leaned in closer to Choi Ho-geun.

“That’s exactly why it seems suspicious.”

Moreover, Yu Seok-hyun and Hong Jae-hee also stared at Choi Ho-geun with doubt written all over their faces.

“I’m telling you, it’s nothing.”

Cornered, Choi Ho-geun continued to deny it, when suddenly a crisp voice cut through the air.

“What do you mean it’s nothing?”

Everyone turned their heads to look, and as expected, Seok-won walked into the Fund Management Department office dressed in a perfectly tailored suit that looked like it came straight from a fashion magazine, accompanied by his Attendant Secretary Han Ji-sung.
Choi Ho-geun and the staff quickly bowed in greeting.

“Welcome, President.”
“You’re all working hard.”

Seok-won raised one hand in a light greeting and approached to ask.

“What were you all discussing so intently?”

Choi Ho-geun laughed awkwardly and replied.

“Ha ha. It was nothing important.”
“Yes, just casual chat. Something about the nice weather today, that sort of thing.”

Jung Hwan-yeop also quickly chimed in from the side to support the story.
Seok-won had inadvertently overheard some of their conversation leaking out before entering the office, but he decided to pretend he hadn’t heard anything.

“What’s Midopa’s stock price at right now?”

Choi Ho-geun answered immediately.

“It was fluctuating around 71,200 won just a moment ago.”
“As expected, the market seems to be anticipating that we’ll raise our public acquisition price again on the 12th.”
“That appears to be the case.”

The 12th, a Friday, was the deadline for the public acquisition announced by Donghae Group.

“How many investors do you think have applied for subscription so far?”
“Since there are still two or three days left, there probably aren’t that many yet, but if we don’t take any significant action by Thursday, the number of investors applying for subscription will increase substantially.”

Seok-won nodded slightly upon hearing the response.

“Right, if they’ve been holding Midopa shares since before the M&A issue emerged, they’ve already made over seven times their investment. Of course they’d want to take their profits.”
“That’s likely. Plus, everyone surely knows there’s massive speculation built into the current stock price.”

While Midopa Department Store was indeed a cash cow for Daeheung Group, a share price exceeding 70,000 won was undeniably an overshooting.
Naturally, everyone could predict that once the M&A issue that had triggered the surge ended, the stock price would plummet back to its former levels.
So it was as obvious as fire that shareholders would rush to sell their stocks to whoever offered the highest price before the stock price collapsed.

“Well then, I think it’s time we made our move now.”

The three men, who had been listening intently to Seok-won’s words, their eyes suddenly gleaming with anticipation.
Their hearts swelled with expectation, thinking we were finally about to launch a proper counterattack.
But what came next completely defied their expectations.

“As we discussed, starting tomorrow, we’ll begin accumulating shares of Donghae Oil.”

Jung Hwan-yeop, who had been cracking his knuckles with determination, involuntarily raised his voice.

“Pardon? You’re accumulating Donghae Oil shares instead of Midopa?”

At Jung Hwan-yeop’s sudden interjection, Choi Ho-geun’s brow furrowed as he shot him a sharp look.
Unlike their earlier bickering, his gaze was genuinely piercing, and Jung Hwan-yeop belatedly realized his mistake, hastily apologizing.

“I’m… I’m sorry.”

Seok-won smiled slightly as if to say it was fine.

“That’s right. We’re not buying Midopa—we’re buying Donghae Oil.”

But Jung Hwan-yeop still couldn’t understand.
Bewildered at the thought of abandoning the company they should be defending to buy different stocks, a sudden realization flashed through his mind, and his eyes widened as he gasped.

“You’re not planning a reverse M&A on Donghae Group, are you!”

Despite the hint he’d just given, Jung Hwan-yeop’s continued interruption made Choi Ho-geun sigh heavily to himself.
Meanwhile, Seok-won smiled knowingly.

“You got it exactly right. I prefer offense to defense—it suits my style better.”
“That’s our chairman!”

Such a strategy fit Jung Hwan-yeop’s temperament perfectly, so he gave a thumbs up in admiration.
Yu Seok-hyun and Hong Jae-hee were equally astonished by Seok-won’s bold plan, yet they couldn’t help but anticipate the satisfaction of landing a proper blow against Donghae Group, who had cowardly tried to seize management rights.

“Make sure the other party doesn’t realize we’re accumulating shares until the last possible moment. And from now on, tighten security so no information leaks outside.”
“Understood.”

Jung Hwan-yeop made a zipping motion across his lips with one hand and winked.

“When it comes to keeping my mouth shut, there’s no one better than me. Don’t worry.”

Despite his confident declaration, Choi Ho-geun let out an internal groan and muttered under his breath.

‘You’re the one I’m most worried about, you bastard.’

The other two shared the sentiment—their gazes fixed on Jung Hwan-yeop were laden with naked distrust.
After issuing a few more instructions and leaving the Daeheung Venture Capital Fund Management Department, Seok-won waited with Han Ji-sung for the Elevator to arrive when he felt a vibration in his inner pocket.
Seok-won pulled out his phone, checked the number on the screen, and answered immediately.
Lee Chul-gyun’s distinctive, gravelly voice came through as usual.

[I’ve completed all the setup as instructed.]

Seok-won gripped the phone tighter at the call he’d been waiting for and spoke.

“Make sure there’s no trace this information came from our end.”
[Of course.]
“Then release it once the market closes today.”
[… If rumors start circulating, won’t that work against Daeheung Group in the share acquisition battle? Are you sure about this?]

At the worried question, Seok-won pulled the corner of his mouth upward while holding the phone to his ear.

“It doesn’t matter. Just do as I’ve instructed.”

Lee Chul-gyun fell silent for a moment before responding.

[Understood.]

The moment the brief call ended, the Elevator arrived and the doors slid open.
Seok-won slipped his phone back into his inner pocket and stepped into the Elevator alongside the Attendant Secretary.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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