WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Arsène
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Conglomerate Heir Just Wants to Fail ◈
Chapter 10
──────
“Of course, Daeseung places its partnerships with subcontractors... no, partner companies above all else. The Chairman has always emphasized that safeguarding their security and profits ultimately strengthens Daeseung Construction’s competitiveness.”
...?
Grandfather wasn’t the sort of person who would say that.
“It’s true. Constructing a single building requires dozens of specialized fields, including civil engineering, structural work, electrical work, plumbing, equipment installation, and finishing. It would be inefficient for Daeseung Construction to directly employ experts and maintain equipment in every one of those fields. Using the best specialist partner companies in each field is far more efficient for reducing overall construction time and costs.”
According to President Jeong, these specialist partner companies were independent of Daeseung, but there were certain close firms that Daeseung regularly gave work to.
“Ah, if you’d like to replace them with companies you know well, please let me know.”
Companies I knew well?
It wasn’t as if I had any...
Ah!
I finally understood what President Jeong meant.
He was talking about secret pipelines that filled the owner family’s pockets.
“Leave that... as the Chairman had it.”
I couldn’t get caught up in the flow of dirty money when Daeseung went under.
“Anyway, I understand why subcontractors are necessary. But...”
So as long as they got construction projects underway, they could still turn a profit by subcontracting the work out.
I couldn’t leave it at that.
“Even so, is there any need to take on more work than we can handle?”
“Pardon?”
“If the real estate market is booming anyway, we’ll be busy enough with requests to construct buildings here and there. Let’s put off development projects where we buy the land ourselves, build on it, and sell the units, till later.”
President Jeong looked as though he was about to faint.
President Jeong passionately argued that the real prize in construction was not simple contracting work, building structures for others, but development projects where the company bought land, built on it, and took responsibility for selling the units.
“Vice Chairman, that can’t be done! Development is precisely where large construction companies like us can maximize the advantages of our financial strength and brand power! It’s the flower of the construction industry, where success is possible only when the three elements of financing capability, unit-sales marketing, and reliable construction capability come together!”
President Jeong protested that giving up development projects during a real estate boom like this was as foolish as kicking away a pile of gold right in front of you.
‘Oh, really? Then I definitely shouldn’t do it.’
Listening to that, I became certain.
If this was something he desperately wanted to do, stopping it would be the best way to hurt the company.
Ignoring President Jeong’s pleading eyes, I delivered my final notice.
“All right. I understand what you’re saying. But my decision won’t change. For the time being, focus on quickly wrapping up the sites already under construction.”
.
Two months later.
Before the reconvened presidents’ meeting began, Chief Kim from the Planning Secretariat personally put breaking news up on the large screen in the conference room.
[Breaking News: Mid-Sized Construction Firm Shinae Construction Applies for Workout, Fallout from PF Insolvency]
“What? Shinae Construction?”
At someone’s low cry, everyone in the meeting room turned toward the screen.
Shinae Construction had been a rising star in the industry, growing more rapidly than anyone else over the past few years through aggressive expansion of its project-finance business.
“It appears the cause was overly aggressive expansion of its PF business over the past few years. They maximized leverage by relying on the apartment pre-sales market, but when the local-government debt default crisis broke out recently, they were hit directly. Their funding dried up, and it seems everything collapsed in succession.”
Even Chief Kim’s voice carried a note of bewilderment.
“Most other construction firms focused on PF are in similar situations right now, and there is even talk that the credit crunch could cause a chain of bankruptcies. Rumors are also circulating that the government is considering emergency liquidity support measures.”
“P-President Jeong! What is this? Did you know?”
Someone grabbed President Jeong’s shoulders and shook them, but President Jeong couldn’t answer.
No, he couldn’t.
Did he know?
Yes. He knew.
Unable to understand Vice Chairman Kang Daeun’s instructions at all, President Jeong had thought and thought ever since that day about what the young owner could have been thinking to issue such an absurd strategic order.
‘Could he have judged that real estate is dangerous right now...?’
President Jeong had spent a lifetime in the construction industry.
Booms and recessions, bubbles and crashes, he had experienced them countless times.
A bubble?
What did that matter?
Even in a glass overflowing with foam, there was always beer left at the bottom.
‘The danger level is rising little by little.’
Of course, President Jeong had sensed subtle changes in the industry’s atmosphere.
But that was all.
The real estate market was absolutely insane right now, and in President Jeong’s view, it would take at least another three years for this enormous bubble to burst.
And it was impossible even to calculate how much profit he could make by riding the wave of the bubble well for those three years.
‘Safety first? Too timid... Was the boldness he showed in retail just a coincidence?’
President Jeong had concluded that the Vice Chairman’s decision was merely an inexperienced young leader playing it safe.
But now, the breaking news on the screen before him proved just how foolish and arrogant that judgment had been.
If he had stubbornly continued his PF business, wouldn’t Daeseung Construction have suffered considerable damage as well?
But who could have imagined that a local government would declare it would not honor a payment guarantee on A1-grade ABCP, asset-backed commercial paper, that it had guaranteed?
“Could it be... that the Vice Chairman foresaw all of this in advance?”
At someone’s words, every gaze in the conference room turned at once toward the empty Vice Chairman’s seat.
The timing was far too perfect to call it coincidence.
In retail, he had shaken up the market through convention-shattering aggressive expansion. In construction, he had halted the PF projects everyone was rushing into at exactly the right time, allowing Daeseung to avoid the coming crisis.
As though he knew the future.
The presidents looked at one another.
Their assessment of the young Vice Chairman was changing from a strategist with frightening insight into an unpredictable genius.
Then the conference room door opened soundlessly, and Chief of Staff Lee Jinju entered.
“Today’s presidents’ meeting has been canceled. President Jeong Geonju, please come up to the Vice Chairman’s office.”
.
“Hmm... This won’t do.”
Sinking into the wide, comfortable chair in the Vice Chairman’s office, I frowned at the report submitted by the finance team.
Money was dwindling far more slowly than I’d expected.
The shopping division was pouring out cash like crazy, but the group’s other highly profitable affiliates made so much money that overall cash reserves weren’t falling by much.
And in terms of asset valuation rather than cash, the shopping division was growing rapidly as well.
“Damn it, why is there so much money? Is there some spring that gushes out money whenever they dig into the ground...?”
I muttered irritably.
To ruin the company, I needed to burn through cash much more boldly and much faster than this.
On the all-news channel that Lee Jinju had half-forced me to keep on at all times, reports about Shinae Construction’s collapse and the PF crisis in the construction industry continued to play.
[The problem is that this won’t end with Shinae Construction alone.]
The anchor pressed an analyst from a securities firm for an answer.
[Are you saying it could cause a contraction across the entire market?]
[Over the past few years of low interest rates, far too many construction companies aggressively raised PF loans and expanded their businesses. But interest rates have recently risen sharply, and the local government’s debt default declaration was the decisive blow, causing the funding market to freeze rapidly. With the money pipeline cut off, we are facing a perfect storm where construction firms unable to even pay next month’s construction costs could collapse one after another.]
The anchor passed the question to the economics professor seated nearby.
[Professor Park, then do you believe government intervention is necessary?]
[Government liquidity support will certainly be necessary, but this was a foreseeable crisis. It is the result of greed that maximized leverage while ignoring fundamentals and relying only on the fever of the apartment pre-sales market. This incident will inevitably separate the wheat from the chaff. Only by decisively clearing out weak companies and restructuring the market around sound ones can our economy become healthier in the long term.]
[Professor, that is a little...]
“The atmosphere in construction must be pretty bad. Everyone’s talking as if they’re dying...”
Watching these so-called experts on the screen pour out difficult terminology with grave expressions, I suddenly had a good idea.
They said a crisis was an opportunity.
Of course, for me, it was an opportunity to ruin the company.
“There’s no surer way than pouring money into the places everyone avoids because they’re dangerous. Let’s see...”
I immediately began reviewing the business plans submitted by the construction affiliate that I had put on hold.
More precisely, rather than reviewing them...
“From here to here. Select all. Approve.”
After entering the company’s electronic approval system on my computer, I approved every plan submitted by construction, then picked up the intercom and called Chief of Staff Lee Jinju.
“Cancel today’s meeting and tell President Jeong of Daeseung Construction to come to my office immediately.”
The plan was simple.
My signature was already on every proposal that had been submitted. Regardless of what the market was doing, I only had to pressure President Jeong to make him succeed somehow.
Then President Jeong would drag the company into a swamp of insolvency on his own.
A little later.
“Vice Chairman!”
As soon as President Jeong entered the room, he glanced at the television that was on and called out to me in a voice almost like a scream.
‘That startled me.’
“How did you know?”
“...?”
“About Shinae Construction’s workout!”
How did I know...?
I’d just found out from the television.
Maybe I should tell President Jeong to keep that channel on in his office too?
Not knowing how to answer, I merely shrugged.
“Our working-level staff all judged that the PF market collapse was still far away... You’re truly remarkable.”
“Ah, that?”
Imagining President Jeong’s face hardening in despair, I slowly opened my mouth.
This was the moment to deliver the final blow.
“I approved every proposal you submitted.”
“Pardon?”
“The ones where you requested approval for PF projects. Every single one. They’ve been approved, so go ahead and give it your best.”
“V-Vice Chairman!”
Watching President Jeong’s eyes widen, I smiled in satisfaction.
Yes, he would be surprised.
It was practically an order to run into a burning house and grab anything valuable he could find... no, just burn to death alongside it.
Naturally, if he proceeded with those projects in this situation, Daeseung Construction would collapse even more miserably than Shinae Construction.
“The Vice Chairman’s profound intention! Jeong Geonju finally sees it!”
What?
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
