New Employees With an Annual Salary of 1 Trillion Won - Chapter 146

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

Chapter 146. One Plus One (5)

The President quickly assessed the situation first.

The Chief Secretary briefly summarized the negotiation contents and reported to the President.

“This situation arose entirely because of my inadequacy. I apologize first.”

“No. This is all our responsibility for operating the card companies carelessly. I’m sorry.”

The President bowed his head.

With this one small action, all negotiation control passed to the President.

No matter how little time remained in his term, since the President personally apologized, everyone had no choice but to step back.

“I hope we can each make small concessions. The government will also promise more support than now. So please expand the debt forgiveness to 50%.”

“…The creditors will bear half the debt.”

“With these conditions, would you be able to acquire GL Card?”

The President convinced the creditors with a single statement.

Now it was my turn.

The President sent silent pressure with a gentle face, telling me to unconditionally accept the conditions.

“I’ll accept the creditors’ 50% condition. However, negotiations with GL Group aren’t finished yet. To finally acquire GL Card, we need agreement with GL Group too.”

“I see. We need to know GL Group’s position too. What are you thinking?”

I naturally passed the baton to GL Group.

The GL Group Vice Chairman opened his mouth with difficulty, wearing a devastated expression.

“We’ll faithfully keep the promised support measures.”

“Looking at the support measures, the approximate scale is about 1 trillion won. Is that correct?”

“Including support measures that can’t be converted to monetary amounts, it can be seen as 1 trillion won scale.”

“Then let’s settle this simply. Let’s agree that GL Group takes on 1 trillion won of GL Card’s debt. If we just drag out time, won’t it become more difficult for everyone?”

It was certainly a clean solution.

As time passed, GL Group would inevitably lose justification and will to support the card company.

They wouldn’t want to spend money on GL Card, which was no longer even an affiliate.

So if GL Group bore 1 trillion won in debt right now, we could prevent any potential sparks in the future.

“I’ll follow the President’s will.”

“Then now only Tiger Fund needs to decide. The creditors will bear 50% of the debt, and GL Group will additionally bear 1 trillion won in debt. So please make a small concession too, Tiger Fund.”

“I’ll concede as much as possible.”

“Then please bear the acquisition cost. Handing over GL Card’s assets at a bargain price doesn’t match public sentiment either. So let’s settle on acquiring it for 2 trillion won.”

The President seemed to have already reviewed all materials before this negotiation.

That’s why he could nail down the acquisition cost at 2 trillion won without hesitation.

2 trillion won was the appropriate level I had expected, so there was no reason not to accept it.

“I’ll accept it. However, may I mention one more condition? This isn’t Tiger Fund’s greed at all, but there’s an additional field we’d like to acquire, so I’d like to use this opportunity to mention it.”

“Please speak.”

“To acquire and normalize GL Card, aggressive restructuring will inevitably follow. When that happens, it’ll be difficult to avoid criticism from public opinion.”

When acquiring a company, conducting restructuring first was the natural order.

Knowing this, both the creditors and President nodded and accepted my words.

“That part can’t be helped. However, shouldn’t we find ways to minimize the scope of restructuring?”

“Large-scale personnel adjustments are unavoidable due to the massive scale of bad debt. Instead, we plan to dilute the shock by linking it with other businesses.”

“What business do you plan to link it with?”

“The battery business.”

I finally brought up the main point.

Wouldn’t it be a waste to only acquire GL Card through this incident?

From the beginning, I planned to swallow GL’s battery division as well.

“I don’t readily understand how the battery business and card business would be linked.”

“Of course there’s no direct connection. However, Tiger Fund has already acquired a battery company in Hong Kong for entering the battery business, and has prepared investment funds. If we pursue the battery business in Korea rather than Hong Kong, we can expect large-scale job creation effects.”

What pleasant words to hear!

No politician would refuse bringing overseas jobs to Korea.

Especially for someone in the President’s position, these would sound even sweeter.

“So you’re saying you’ll bring the Hong Kong battery company to Korea.”

“Correct. For that, we need already established infrastructure. If we acquire GL’s battery division, we can launch the business in earnest without delay, and conduct large-scale hiring within this year.”

“I understand GL’s battery division is also in deficit. Through this opportunity, couldn’t GL Group simultaneously clean up two failing businesses?”

It was perfect justification.

Job creation and cleaning up failing businesses.

Since two reasons the government would like were prepared at once, the President immediately pressured the GL Group Vice Chairman.

“This seems like a very good opportunity to clean up failing businesses. How about accepting Tiger Fund’s proposal?”

“The battery business is a core field GL Group has strategically invested in. I can’t make such a decision carelessly in this setting.”

“Is that so? You’re saying you have no funds to inject into GL Card, but have capacity to invest in batteries.”

It was checkmate.

The moment GL Group abandons GL Card, they can no longer protect anything else.

They’d desperately try to hold onto core businesses, but even the justification to protect deficit-making divisions like batteries disappeared.

“This is too harsh. We can’t lose batteries after semiconductors.”

“If GL had kept holding onto the semiconductor business, they’d be in Daehyeon Group’s situation by now. Moreover, what would happen if the government, creditors, and Tiger Fund didn’t step forward to resolve the GL Card crisis?”

The GL Group Vice Chairman tried to protect the battery division somehow.

But he must have already sensed that he ultimately couldn’t protect it in this situation.

The reason he persisted was likely a strategy to sell the battery division for even a bit more money.

There was no need to fall for such a strategy.

So I directly intervened in the conversation between the President and GL Group Vice Chairman.

“May I say something?”

“Please speak freely.”

“I don’t know how much GL Group will invest in batteries going forward. But Tiger Fund plans to invest over a trillion won annually. However, if we can’t acquire GL Battery, those funds will go to Hong Kong, not Korea.”

A warning that trillion-won investments would flow to Hong Kong.

It was also pressure to refuse if they were confident about investing in batteries as much as Tiger Fund.

“GL Group should concede. Haven’t the creditors and Tiger Fund already accepted trillion-won sacrifices because of the card business? If GL Card’s acquisition falls through this time, GL Group will bear all that responsibility alone.”

“Understood. We’ll sell GL’s battery division to Tiger Fund. However, we want fair evaluation of the funds invested so far and the division’s assets.”

I had already finished investigating GL’s battery division’s value.

I distributed materials to not only the GL Group Vice Chairman but all the creditors.

No group understood corporate value as accurately as the creditor group composed of commercial banks, so they could serve as judges.

“As you’ll see in the materials, we valued GL’s battery division at 50 billion won. Considering the deficit sales structure, this is by no means a low amount.”

“Operating profit is gradually improving. Considering technology and future potential, we should receive at least 100 billion won.”

The evaluation difference between both sides was a full double.

Of course, compared to GL Card’s acquisition amount, it was an incomparably small scale.

Even acquiring it for 100 billion won would be profitable enough considering the benefits from acquiring GL Card.

Nevertheless, I continued fierce negotiations.

This wasn’t simply to reduce the amount, but a process to design the future framework.

“What do the creditors think?”

“Tiger Fund’s proposed amount seems most reasonable. However, we should consider the technology, so wouldn’t setting it around 60 billion won be appropriate?”

“Please consider the battery business’s future. Before long, the battery industry will grow explosively. Acquiring such a business for 100 billion won is by no means expensive.”

The GL Group Vice Chairman didn’t back down.

Seeing this, I inwardly sighed with relief.

Only by coming on strong like that could I comfortably present the conditions I’d prepared in advance.

“Fine. If you’ll just accept two conditions, I’ll acquire GL’s battery division for 100 billion won.”

“What conditions?”

“The first is a very natural condition. Prohibition from re-entering the battery business. I think this should be observed morally as well.”

Everyone nodded.

The re-entry prohibition clause wasn’t an unreasonable condition, so it was accepted without objection.

“What’s the time period?”

“20 years.”

“I’ll accept it. What’s the next condition?”

The GL Group Vice Chairman also accepted the re-entry prohibition clause.

However, the next condition was one he would find difficult to accept easily.

“The final condition is a mechanism to protect GL Battery’s revenue structure. Currently, most of the volume produced by GL Battery is consumed by GL Electronics. But if Tiger Fund acquires it, that connection would be severed.”

“So you mean GL Electronics should continue to receive a certain volume going forward?”

“That’s correct. We’re not demanding the entire volume. However, at least 30% must be supplied obligatorily to maintain a stable sales structure.”

A mandatory 30% volume supply contract.

GL Electronics’ presence was absolutely essential for GL Battery to maintain short-term sales.

Of course, even without a contract, GL Electronics couldn’t immediately switch to other suppliers, but they wouldn’t want to specify that obligation in the contract either.

“I understand what you mean, but forcing a supply contract doesn’t seem right. Of course, we’ll continue to receive GL Electronics’ batteries from GL Battery, but it’s difficult to specify this in a contract.”

“Is GL Battery’s technology the issue?”

“There’s no problem now, but who knows what will happen over time? If quality suddenly deteriorates, GL Electronics’ image would also suffer greatly.”

GL Group’s opinion was quite reasonable too.

So I presented a new compromise.

“Then how about setting the period to exactly 5 years? We’ll sign a 30% volume supply contract for 5 years. If GL Battery’s technology is real, there shouldn’t be quality issues for at least 5 years, right?”

“If it’s 5 years, I’ll accept it.”

Five years was sufficient.

We could find new clients within that time, and we already had Apple as a global partner.

“Well then! It seems all agreements are complete now. Shall we draft the contract right here?”

“Let’s start with an agreement first, and we’ll complete the formal contract including detailed terms within this week.”

“Would it be alright to announce the contract to the media today?”

“We have no objections.”

The Chief Secretary was quite eager.

The President also clearly wanted to announce the GL Card sale to the media today.

“Does everyone agree? Then we’ll distribute materials to the media while drafting the agreement.”

Everyone nodded.

No one here was bold enough to overturn a contract conducted at the Blue House.

Since the agreement was practically equivalent to a contract, there was absolutely no chance the deal would be reversed even if reported in the media first.

“Please sign the agreement.”

“I’ll manage GL Card and Battery well.”

The GL Group Vice Chairman finished signing and handed the agreement to me.

I received the agreement with a very respectful posture and inscribed my signature on the remaining side.

Finally, GL Card and Battery had come into my hands.

One axis of the structure I had designed was complete, and I could accelerate my plan even further.

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