Mun-jong and the others gathered in the living room reacted fiercely upon hearing Tak-hyeon’s words.
“What about me? I’m doing nothing at all right now, so why is Gyeong-eun being given the department store on top of the hotel?”
Jeong-eun, who still hadn’t been put in charge of anything after Ilhyeon Fashion was sold off through the restructuring work, backlashed especially hard.
“If it’s a department store, it should be entrusted to me. Have you forgotten I was at Ilhyeon Fashion? When it comes to department stores, I know better. What does she know, that you’d entrust her with a department store too?”
“Chairman. I’m inclined to think entrusting even Ilhyeon Department Store to the youngest is too much. As Jeong-eun says, wouldn’t it be better to entrust it to Jeong-eun instead?”
“Chairman. Not only the eldest brother—none of us siblings has a track record of holding two affiliates at once. The third and fourth haven’t even sat in a president’s chair. And yet for the youngest alone to take on Ilhyeon Department Store on top of Ilhyeon Hotel is unjust.”
When, following Jeong-eun, even Mun-jong and Sang-jong put forward opposing views, Tak-hyeon, who’d only been quietly listening, said to Sang-jong, who’d offered the last opinion,
“What’s unjust about it?”
“It’s just… I wondered if it wasn’t too much of special treatment…”
Sang-jong finished and glanced at Seong-ho.
He’d gotten the feeling that the reason Gyeong-eun was receiving special treatment was, after all, because of Seong-ho.
At that Sang-jong, Tak-hyeon snorted a laugh and said,
“Then will you take it on?”
“What? Me?”
“Yes. You take on Ilhyeon Hotel and Ilhyeon Department Store together. Though I’d have to seat Gyeong-eun in the Ilhyeon Construction president’s chair instead.”
“I…”
Sang-jong couldn’t answer right away.
Because however much he’d hold Ilhyeon Hotel and Ilhyeon Department Store together, it wasn’t to the level of trading them for Ilhyeon Construction, a core of the Ilhyeon Group.
At Sang-jong, who avoided his gaze unable to answer, Tak-hyeon let out a snort once more.
And he said to Mun-jong,
“I’ve been thinking for a long while of consolidating the finely-divided affiliates into a few.”
“You mean you’ve been thinking of consolidating the affiliates?”
“Yes.”
Tak-hyeon looked around at his children seated there and said,
“You all know well that Head Kim’s Restructuring Headquarters has been doing the work of consolidating overlapping operations and making the group a bit more efficient.”
At Tak-hyeon’s words, the children turned their gazes to Seong-ho, and Tak-hyeon continued toward them,
“I think you all feel that our group has become a bit more efficient through this restructuring. But I intend to go a step further from here.”
“A step further? You mean you’re thinking of a stage after the restructuring?”
“Yes. I intend to build a group beneath the group.”
“A group beneath the group? What do you mean by that?”
Mun-jong and Tak-hyeon’s other children wore unfamiliar expressions at the first-time-heard talk.
Because they couldn’t imagine at all what “a group beneath the group” referred to.
But Seong-ho alone knew what Tak-hyeon’s words meant.
Because he’d already experienced once, in the former life, the affiliate-grouping work Tak-hyeon had directed.
“Our group’s affiliates right now are all finely divided. Affiliates using the Ilhyeon name alone exceed seventy. To handle these finely-divided affiliates efficiently, my thinking is that intermediate-stage groups are needed.”
“You mean you’ll bundle affiliates of similar kinds together?”
Tak-hyeon nodded and said,
“For example, making the places that handle money—cards, insurance, life, securities—into a financial group.”
Tak-hyeon paused his words for a moment and looked at Seong-ho.
This plan was something he’d thought out long ago.
As a means of making the swollen Ilhyeon Group a bit more efficient, a plan had already been established under Do-beom’s lead, with only implementation remaining.
But over the final decision, Tak-hyeon had been hesitating a while.
Because the anxiety came that placing a group beneath the group might, at worst, bring about a situation of the group splitting apart.
So he’d been putting it off, unable to make the decision to implement.
And yet Seong-ho had opened the channel that let the decision be made.
By making the request to let Gyeong-eun take on Ilhyeon Department Store too, he’d pushed Tak-hyeon’s back so the grouping decision could be made.
Thinking Seong-ho’s request was cunning, Tak-hyeon looked at Seong-ho for a moment, then said again to Mun-jong and the others,
“This idea has been there for a long time. But I still hold the doubt that it might not be as efficient as expected. So I mean to find that out first through Gyeong-eun.”
At Tak-hyeon’s words that taking on Ilhyeon Department Store on top of holding Ilhyeon Hotel was still no more than a test, the backlash of Mun-jong and the others present subsided.
If anything, they even felt relieved not to be the first batter in the test.
Even Jeong-eun, who’d backlashed asking why Gyeong-eun and not she, resting, had been given Ilhyeon Department Store, shut her mouth and only watched how the situation turned.
Because the first of this sort of thing was so dangerous that doing well only broke even, and going wrong meant even the Ilhyeon Hotel she was sitting in could be taken away.
On top of that, in a situation like now, with the market sunken and not an inch of the way ahead visible, there was no reason to gamble.
“Both the hotel and the department store are service businesses dealing with customers. I’ll confirm how good results you show in the service business and decide what more I’ll entrust to you. Conversely, when it doesn’t meet my satisfaction… then I too will think again about you, so you mustn’t do this halfheartedly.”
“Yes. Don’t worry. I don’t think the hotel and the department store are greatly different. I’ll pull it off well, so watch me.”
Gyeong-eun, who’d already heard about it from Seong-ho, told Tak-hyeon to entrust it to her with a confident manner.
Tak-hyeon glanced at Seong-ho, sitting quietly beside Gyeong-eun, and waved a hand.
“Fine. Then let’s end this here.”
Having wrapped up the Ilhyeon Department Store talk, Tak-hyeon looked at Chang-jong and asked,
“What’s your wife up to?”
When Eun-a Jang’s story came up, Chang-jong wore an expression as if his mouth had gone bitter.
Her not attending even the Sunday gathering of the whole family gave the feeling that she was disregarding not only him but every other family member too.
“If it really won’t work, you can just divorce.”
With Gyeong-eun’s matter settled and the talk moving to Eun-a Jang, Mun-jong offered Chang-jong advice.
“You’re worse than a married couple as it is, so what’s the use of living together?”
“That’s right, brother-in-law. He even fathered a child outside and brought it home, so your wife won’t want to live together either. Just split up while you’re at it.”
“How can you say such a thing? It makes it sound like Chang-jong did wrong.”
“So he did right?”
When Mun-jong scolded Hyeon-ju Bang, Hyeon-ju Bang raised her head straight up and glared at Mun-jong.
Mun-jong, holding an unease in his heart, couldn’t look straight at Hyeon-ju Bang.
Mun-jong turned his gaze away, and Hyeon-ju Bang, as if she knew everything, didn’t stop glaring at him.
At any rate, when Mun-jong avoided her and the Mun-jong couple’s commotion subsided, Tak-hyeon spoke to Chang-jong again.
“It seems the time to decide is just about here.”
Perhaps Chang-jong thought the same as Tak-hyeon, for he nodded and lent an ear to Tak-hyeon’s words.
“Whatever it is, make a decision within a month and come to me.”
“Yes. I’ll decide as quickly as possible and come.”
“Right. Then that’s settled.”
Tak-hyeon rose from his seat, showing that he had nothing more to say.
Tak-hyeon’s children present rose following him and greeted Tak-hyeon as he headed for the study.
Tak-hyeon headed for the study receiving his children’s greetings, and Seong-ho quietly watched his back.
The sale of Doa Motors fell into even greater confusion.
[An anonymous official of the German automobile company revealed that they view the Doa Motors acquisition negatively. The reasons were that the debt is too severe and there’s a high likelihood of difficulties after acquisition due to the hard-line union. Furthermore, the technology they hold is of a lower level compared to the German automobile company, so internally they judge that the benefit to be gained after acquisition would be negligible, he said. This attitude of the German automobile company was well displayed in the first bidding. The word of an official that the German automobile company did not submit a bid price was conveyed off the record, and…]
A press article came out that the mood of the German automobile company being the likely acquirer wasn’t true.
[Sunwoo Motors also negative on bidding. Sunwoo Motors reveals it will devote its full efforts to the Duryong Motors acquisition.]
The word came out that Sunwoo Group too had no interest in the Doa Motors bidding.
When the German automobile company and Sunwoo Group showed themselves pulling back a step, cases even emerged of those standing in the second line, Dugyeong Group included, giving up on the bidding altogether.
[Dongcheon Group gives up bidding]
[Gijeong Construction gives up bidding]
[…gives up] […gives up]
The moment the first bidding went unsold, in the creaking mood, an anxiety that Doa Motors might, after all, fail to find a new owner and take insolvency proceedings began to envelop the market.
—The union’s ruthlessness is precisely what created this very situation.
—The union is making far too excessive demands. They need to step back.
—The union should hear the Ilhyeon Group out. The conduct of humiliating the Restructuring Headquarters head who went to talk must never happen again.
—In a situation where the possibility of acquisition by the German company has dropped, the union has no other choice.
—The union must reflect.
As the possibility of Doa Motors’ insolvency rose, the arrows of blame turned toward the Doa Motors union.
The panelists who came on broadcast to discuss the Doa Motors situation all blamed Doa Motors with one voice.
The workers of related companies—at second-tier and third-tier subcontractors and so on, companies that would collapse like dominoes if Doa Motors entered insolvency proceedings—also turned their backs on the Doa Motors union.
They shot all the arrows of blame at the union, which had thrown away the Ilhyeon Group—the most likely card—before the bidding had even begun.
Union chairman Geun-yong Park, feeling flustered at this mood, shouted at Modu Bank president Don-su Park.
“How did this happen? Didn’t you clearly say that if we blocked the Ilhyeon Group, the likelihood of acquisition by the German automobile company was high?”
“That’s…”
Don-su Park wiped his forehead with a handkerchief and wore a troubled expression.
The vice-president, on President Don-su Park’s behalf, said to Doa Motors union chairman Geun-yong Park and advisor Gwang-myeong Kim,
“It was high. Until you did something outside common sense, that is.”
“Something outside common sense? What do you mean?”
“You should have done it in moderation.”
The vice-president, as if stifled, clenched his fist and pounded the desk, raising his voice.
“With so many places watching, did you really have to make a laughingstock of the Ilhyeon Group’s man so openly like that?”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about throwing rotten eggs at the Ilhyeon Group’s Head Seong-ho Kim!”
“What does that have to do with the German automaker acquiring our company?”
“Why would it have nothing to do with it?”
The vice-president looked at union chairman Geun-yong Park with a pitying gaze and said,
“Because you did that in front of the cameras, wasn’t all of it captured on camera? And that got conveyed through the press not only to our country but across the sea, all the way to Germany.”
“And what of it, that it got known?”
“Do you still not get it? I’m saying the German automobile company’s people saw that and are hesitating to participate in the bidding. They’re people who are sick to death of hard-line unions.”
The advisor Gwang-myeong Kim, listening, couldn’t hold back and cut in.
“When it comes to hard-line unions, aren’t European unions worse? They set fires and burn police cars at the drop of a hat, as I understand it. And yet all we did was throw a few rotten eggs. How is this the conduct of a hard-line union that anyone would be sick to death of?”
At advisor Gwang-myeong Kim’s words, President Don-su Park suddenly shouted,
“At the very least, one doesn’t publicly humiliate a party that has an intent to bid.”
“Wasn’t that all something you people ordered?”
When Don-su Park shouted, union chairman Geun-yong Park shouted in an even louder voice.
Union chairman Geun-yong Park, his face gone bright red, jabbed a finger at President Don-su Park and cried out,
“Didn’t you tell us to do it? To block the Ilhyeon Group. You said that’s how the company could be handed to the German company—it’s something you ordered.”
Bang!
The vice-president brought his fist down on the desk.
“We said block them—who said to humiliate them? Eating grease-rice, has grease clogged up your head too, so it won’t turn properly?”
“What? Where do you get off… Hey! You want to die?”
“Want to die? The ones who die are you. If Doa Motors goes insolvent, not just you but the union that follows you and their families all die.”
“This bastard…”
When union chairman Geun-yong Park sprang to his feet, the vice-president rose too, not backing down.
At the mood turned menacing, as if a fistfight would break out at any moment, Gwang-myeong Kim rose to mediate.
“Let’s not get angry like this and talk sitting down. Nothing gets solved by us fighting among ourselves right now, does it?”
Gwang-myeong Kim, holding Geun-yong Park back, calmed the vice-president.
The vice-president glared at Geun-yong Park and said,
“If you won’t press the question of responsibility on us, I’m willing to sit and talk. Chairman Park. Do you intend to keep pressing the question of responsibility?”
“Wasn’t it you people who brought it up first?”
When union chairman Geun-yong Park raised his voice, Gwang-myeong Kim patted Geun-yong Park’s shoulder and said to the vice-president,
“Understood. We won’t press it, so Modu Bank’s side, please let this matter go too.”
“Fine.”
When the vice-president said all right and sat down, Gwang-myeong Kim calmed the seething Geun-yong Park and took his seat.
Gwang-myeong Kim laid a hand on the still-heaving Geun-yong Park’s shoulder to help his heart settle, then said to President Don-su Park,
“Does the German automobile company have no plan to participate in the bidding again?”
“You may regard it as a complete withdrawal. It’s not only the German automobile company. Domestic companies, Sunwoo included, are all scheduled to withdraw.”
“Then… what do we do? Do we really have no answer but insolvency?”
Gwang-myeong Kim wore an expression as if about to weep and asked President Don-su Park.
The agitated Geun-yong Park, too, once the talk reached this point, had no choice but to settle his agitation.
Because in a situation where, quite literally, life and death were divided, the anger toward the vice-president was nothing.
President Don-su Park glanced at the vice-president for a moment and opened his mouth.
“Right now, the only path for Doa Motors to survive is for the Ilhyeon Group to participate in the bidding—that’s all.”
“The Ilhyeon… Group?”
Geun-yong Park and Gwang-myeong Kim shut their eyes tight at the Ilhyeon Group being the only method.
The two, in whose minds the sight—of throwing rotten eggs when Seong-ho visited the Gwangmyeong plant, and on top of that shouting at him to pull out of the bidding—rose as vividly as if it were yesterday, couldn’t open their eyes and regretted what had passed.
(End of Chapter 130)