The Return of the Ruined Chaebol's Third-Generation Heir - Chapter 78

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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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Regression of a Fallen Chaebol’s Third Generation 078
“Welcome.”
The second-floor office of the Mifo National Industrial Complex Management Authority.
9:30 a.m. Jung Tae-sung had arrived ten minutes early.
After being shown in, the department head stood and offered his business card.
“I’m O Sung-min, section chief of Industrial Support.”
“I’m Jung Tae-sung, executive director of Strategic Planning at SJ Holdings.”
They exchanged cards and took their seats.
On the table lay a map of the industrial complex layout.
“You mentioned inquiring about vacant land in the complex. May I ask what purpose you have in mind?”
“Our subsidiary, Shinhwa Welltech, currently operates two factories in the Mifo Complex. Both are at full capacity, so we’re considering an expansion on adjacent land.”
Jung Tae-sung pulled out his prepared documents and placed them on the table.
Copies of Shinhwa Welltech’s business registration, three years of sales trends, and an expansion plan summary.
For the management authority, this was sufficient grounds for trust.
“Let me take a look.”
The section chief scanned the documents. He nodded and swiveled the monitor, opening the industrial complex map on screen.
“Let me check the location. Shinhwa Welltech is currently in Block 4, correct?”
“Yes. We’re looking at Block 6 or Block 7, adjacent to Block 4.”
The section chief’s eyes stopped on the map, and the way he looked at it subtly shifted.
“Block 7 is currently the subject of ongoing negotiations.”
“By negotiations, you mean the sale isn’t finalized?”
“It’s not finalized, but there are higher-priority negotiations in process, so it’s difficult for me to give you an answer right now.”
“What about Block 6?”
“Block 6 is in a similar situation. I apologize, but it would be best if I checked with my supervisory department and contacted you afterward.”
Jung Tae-sung opened his mouth with a puzzled expression.
“As far as I know, those plots have been vacant for three years?”
“Ah… that’s true, but…”
“You’re not saying the negotiations have been going on for three years?”
“Well… the negotiations have been ongoing for quite some time.”
He wasn’t lying, exactly. But he looked like a man under pressure from something.
“Then there’s no space available in other blocks?”
“No, not at the moment. How about this? One of the factories in Block 4 has come on the market. Perhaps you could acquire that instead?”
It was absurd. If they bought an existing factory plot when empty land was available, tore down the building, and rebuilt the production line, it would cost far more.
“I’m afraid that’s not feasible.”
“Well then, what should we do? I don’t have much more to offer.”
The fact that both adjacent plots were simultaneously—and had been for a long time—under negotiation wasn’t simply a shortage of available properties.
Either someone was holding them in advance, or there were instructions to hold them.
Either way, it wasn’t normal procedure.
But Jung Tae-sung didn’t pressure the section chief sitting across from him. The man clearly had no authority to decide on this.
“Or, if you don’t mind waiting a bit, I could look into it and contact you?”
When the section chief said this, Jung Tae-sung nodded.
There was nothing more to get here. He’d need to change tactics.
Either break through the city-level connections directly, or first identify who the actual parties to the preliminary negotiations were.
“I’ll await your contact once you’ve confirmed things.”
Jung Tae-sung stood and placed another business card on the table.
“I’ve written my personal number. It’s urgent, so I’d appreciate a prompt reply.”
“Yes, I’ll contact you once I’ve confirmed.”
After Jung Tae-sung left the office.
……
The section chief stared at the business card for a while, then opened a drawer and placed it inside.
After a moment’s hesitation, he picked up the receiver. He dialed a four-digit internal extension.
“This is O Sung-min. Please connect me to Industrial Policy.”
The line rang twice before someone answered.
“Yes, I contacted you about the Mifo Block 7 matter. Today SJ Holdings contacted us about land. They said it’s for Shinhwa Welltech’s expansion.”
He listened for a moment, then nodded.
“Yes… yes, understood. I’ll proceed as discussed.”
The section chief, as if resigned, pushed the documents and business card he’d received from Jung Tae-sung back into the drawer.

* * *
“How did it go?”
That evening, Jung Tae-sung came to the residence, and from his expression alone, I could tell.
It wasn’t good news.
“Securing the land is difficult.”
Jung Tae-sung sat across from me and pulled out a notebook.
“Both Block 6 and Block 7 are under negotiation, according to their answer. They said there are higher-priority negotiations, that they’d check with their supervisors and contact me, but in my judgment, it’s essentially a rejection.”
“Weren’t those plots sitting vacant for over three years?”
Shinhwa Welltech’s location had always been on the outer edge of the complex, so it wasn’t a particularly desirable area.
“I brought that up too, but the section chief seemed uncomfortable.”
It wasn’t unexpected. If land was available in the complex but they wouldn’t release it, there had to be a reason. But I hadn’t anticipated such direct obstruction.
“So I did some additional investigating.”
Jung Tae-sung flipped through his notebook as he spoke.
“Block 7 has been earmarked for a first-tier subcontractor of Seonjin Motors. It’s a plating and surface treatment company, still pre-contract. But the space is already reserved.”
“Is it the same for the other block?”
“Yes, that one also appears to be earmarked for another Seonjin Motors subcontractor.”
When I first came to Ulsan, I hadn’t overlooked this possibility, but it was more blatant than I’d imagined.
“And there are signs of informal coordination between the City Industrial Policy Department and Seonjin Motors’ Purchasing Division. Seonjin Motors appears to have requested these plots for subcontractor complex expansion, and the city agreed.”
“You found all this out today?”
“Yes. I have connections in Ulsan, so it wasn’t difficult to uncover.”
He was impressive.
He’d hit a wall at the authority that morning and by evening the same day had figured out what was behind it.
“You’ve worked hard.”
“Is Seonjin Motors trying to keep us in check? Because of the SJ Holdings name?”
I could sense what was worrying him. During the management rights dispute between Seonjin Aluminum and Seonjin Group, Kim Seok-jun had appeared as a white knight under the SJ Holdings name on his mother’s side.
At that time, the SJ Holdings name had been publicly exposed.
But that wouldn’t be the reason.
“I don’t think so. Even if Kim Seok-jun fought with Seonjin Aluminum, there’s no reason Kang Tae-yong would personally move to block a small company like Shinhwa Welltech.”
There was no reason for it.
Shinhwa Welltech was a semiconductor chemical company with no overlapping business areas with Seonjin Motors.
And they wouldn’t even know I was behind it.
“In my opinion, it’s less deliberate opposition and more… how do I put it? It’s just how things naturally fall in line.”
You only had to consider Seonjin Motors’ weight in Ulsan.
Tax revenue, employment, even the subcontracting ecosystem. More than half of Ulsan’s manufacturing output comes from Seonjin Motors and its subcontractor network.
From the city’s perspective, if Seonjin Motors wants to use this land, there’s no reason to refuse.
Or rather, they cannot refuse.
No matter how well we prepare our documents, if Seonjin Motors wants the same plot, the city’s choice was Seonjin Motors.
Kang Tae-yong didn’t have to do anything special. Ulsan itself was an ecosystem built around Seonjin Motors—it had no choice.
“Can’t we fight it?”
As my silence stretched, Jung Tae-sung spoke first.
“There are ways. We could use the media, break through city council channels, go legal—we have options. And if it’s a public opinion campaign, we’d have a reasonable chance of winning.”
“Let’s say we win.”
I spoke while looking at Jung Tae-sung.
“Let’s say we get the land. But what about permits? We need water supply, power connections, wastewater treatment permits. Every time we want to operate the factory, we need cooperation from the city and the management authority. If we win once and then have to tiptoe around them every time after, is that really winning?”
Speaking to Jung Tae-sung helped me organize my own thoughts.
“This was never our yard to begin with.”
Shinhwa Welltech took root in Ulsan because of the Mifo Complex’s petrochemical infrastructure.
Raw material supply, permits, skilled workers.
It was ideal for semiconductor chemical manufacturing.
But secondary battery materials are different. The customers differ, supply chains diverge, and factory scale is in a different dimension entirely. Moreover, Synapse has nothing to do with petrochemical infrastructure.
At least now, there’s no reason for either business to be in Ulsan.
“Director Jung.”
“Yes?”
“Let’s end it here for today. Let me think it over and get back to you.”
Jung Tae-sung nodded and stood, leaving the room.
“This is going to be a long night.”

* * *
Buzz—
That night, as I sat alone organizing my thoughts, my phone vibrated. The screen showed Danny from New York.
I answered immediately.
-Seon-woo, it’s me. You got time?
Accounting for the time difference, it was morning in New York.
“Yeah, it’s about Volta, right?”
-Yeah. I looked into it. But first I gotta ask you something.
“What is it?”
-Why this company?
Danny’s voice was serious, no trace of humor. He was asking in earnest.
-Honestly? It’s a complete mess.
Danny sighed and started his report.
-Volta Motors. Ryan Holt. Guy who made money selling an online payment service and then started an electric car company.
The name was familiar to me, and I knew what would happen to him in the future, but Danny’s voice was grave.
-He’s building the Lightning, their first model, but it’s not in mass production yet. They have prototypes, and the performance is getting recognition. Zero to sixty in under four seconds, range over 300 kilometers.
So from the start, the car achieved over 300 kilometers of range.
Ryan Holt was indeed a mad man.
“Doesn’t that mean they have the technology?”
-They have the tech. The problem is everything else.
Danny laid it out point by point.
-First, they don’t have their own platform. Lightning is using the chassis borrowed from Lotus in England. Developing an EV-dedicated platform requires billions more, money they don’t have. So they’ve pitched joint ventures and investments to complete automakers like GM and Daimler, but they’ve all been rejected. Electric cars? Now? Who’s buying? That’s the mood.
“What about the VC side?”
-Same deal. Right after the financial crisis hit, investment sentiment completely froze. Most Silicon Valley VCs are backing away, and investment banks won’t even talk to them.
The Fed was opening the money spigots, but the aftershocks of Lehman were still lingering.
Even VCs that specialized in venture investments were being cautious with their capital.
-Electric cars burn through money in ways nobody can predict. It’s not like software startups where a few engineers write code. You’ve got to build factories, buy batteries, assemble vehicles. It’s capital-intensive manufacturing, and there’s no VC in this market willing to invest in that.
“So what’s their funding situation like now?”
-Holt’s put almost all his personal wealth in. Even that’s not enough—there’s talk he’s borrowing from friends. They opened a funding round but can’t close it. I don’t know how many months they can survive.
Danny paused for a moment, then spoke.
-And honestly? Wall Street’s even whispering it might be a scam.
Scam.
The kind of fraud where a plausible-sounding project lures investors, takes their money, then the company collapses or the founder disappears.
“A scam?”
-Is an electric car even feasible, or is it just burning through investor money? People won’t say outright that Holt’s a con artist—he’s got name recognition—but the consensus is he’s a crank. Almost nobody takes him seriously.
Electric cars did seem premature for this moment in time.
But innovation has always required some mad person to take the plunge first, even if everyone calls them insane.
-So I’m asking again: why this company? I know you’re not the type to throw money away for nothing, so there’s gotta be a reason.
“I need Volta Motors’ value chain right now.”
Shinhwa Welltech makes battery materials, Synapse builds robots that assemble those batteries. That’s the value chain I’m building.
But what sits at the very top of that chain?
The electric car.
For battery demand to explode, electric cars have to be mass-produced. For robot demand to exist, battery factories have to exist.
-Electric cars?
“Yeah. I don’t think it’s a scam. Someone’s pushing hard to open a door that’s been locked shut. That someone is Ryan Holt.”
In my previous life, Volta Motors did exactly that.
If Volta Motors is in trouble now, I can step in as a white knight. After all, the saying that a true friend is one you meet in hard times applies in America too.
Even if I can’t funnel Shinhwa Welltech and Synapse through them, it’ll be an enormously profitable investment.
“Danny.”
-Yeah?
“The age of electric cars is coming.”
I said it with certainty.
“No one believes it now, but when battery costs drop and gas prices rise, the market will open. That happens within five years. And whichever electric car company survives until then owns the market.”
-You’re saying that’s Volta?
“Right now, who else is mad enough to try building a battery electric car from scratch to finish besides Holt?”
Danny was silent for a moment.
-Nobody.
“Exactly. Holt has to survive. Volta has to survive, so my business survives.”
I heard Danny exhale on the other end of the line.
-Got it. What’s the plan?
“I need to meet Holt. Set it up for me. The sooner the better.”
-It’s Christmas season, so I’m not sure I can lock anything down. But given his situation, Holt won’t be able to refuse.
“I’m counting on you.”
-Alright. So you’re coming to the US directly?
“Yeah, I’ll call you once I have my schedule sorted. I’ll see you in America.”
-Okay.
After ending the call with Danny, I sat for a moment.
Volta was decided.
What remained was one thing.
“This doesn’t need much more thought.”
I picked up the phone and called Jung Tae-sung.
“Director Jung, it’s me.”
-Sir, what is it?
“The Ulsan land deal is off.”
A brief silence followed.
“We’re leaving Ulsan.”

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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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