Chapter 160

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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“How much Bluezone shares do we hold?”

“Precisely 4.7%. If this goes over 5%, that’s when government restrictions come in. To investigate whether we’re mass purchasing stock for acquisition or if there’s another purpose.”

“So we deliberately didn’t cross that line?”

“Yes. It seems President Jeong deliberately stayed barely on the line without crossing it.”

During Faceweb, Gwangwoon bought shares aggressively without any interference.

That was because control structure was solid with differential voting rights.

Also, with stock price continuously falling, even with us buying frantically, the price didn’t bounce upward.

“But……… why did this suddenly come?”

Hwang Dae-woon tilted his head.

Because out of nowhere, a proposal came from Whiterock and Wingard—the world’s largest asset management companies—to hand over Bluezone’s management rights to Gwangwoon.

“Those two hold over 20% of shares.”

“What about Chairman Lainjov’s holdings?”

“9%. Originally over 13%, but he kept selling shares saying he’s developing the space industry and it dropped to 9%.”

Those two asset managers holding 20%.

And the chairman has only 9%.

Without differential voting rights, you might wonder how one can control a company with just 9%.

“That’s because Bluezone released all shares to the market. No single faction holds an overwhelming amount, so that level became sufficient for control.”

“Plus Bluezone was growing well and joined the $1 trillion club. So no one questioned Lainjov’s leadership.”

“Then when things blew up, major shareholders rose up first. Also, executives on the board held some shares too, and with them joining in, Lainjov was reportedly ousted from chairman.”

“So a coup happened internally? And those guys come begging us to take the throne instead?”

“Yes. Someone needs to run this company, don’t they?”

History repeats itself, they say.

Before, rebellions occurred in kingdoms to overthrow monarchies; now coups were happening in corporations to oust executives.

“So we lucked into this?”

“No. That doesn’t seem to be the case.”

“It’s not?”

“Yes. This time pirates attacked ships and stopped them, right? Because of that, all goods supposed to be supplied to Bluezone got stuck at sea. We even completely cut off supply to Bluezone due to semiconductor shortages. That delivered the finishing blow.”

“The ship problem was done by pirates, wasn’t it?”

“That’s true, but whether President Jeong Jin-ho intended it or not, he probably used that as justification to shake up Bluezone. It’s true we aggressively bought shares from then.”

Even if ships were an unavoidable accident, cutting off semiconductor supply was practically a declaration of war against Bluezone.

Wasn’t Bluezone already seeing stock price drop from poor performance and having done mass layoffs?

“So they deliberately induced this situation by dealing a fatal blow to such Bluezone?”

“Yes. Originally Wingard and Whiterock never get involved in management. While they’re the world’s largest asset managers, each fund has different characteristics, and usually when entering large-cap stocks like Bluezone, they want stable returns rather than management.”

But when Bluezone, which they trusted, had stock crash and dividends drop due to poor performance, those two companies couldn’t stay still either.

“Exiting was an option, but they seem to have chosen to hand management to us to revive Bluezone.”

“Then shareholders won’t have major complaints if we take over management?”

“Yes. Since the article came out that Lainjov was ousted from chairman and management rights are being handed to our Gwangwoon, stock price is actually rising.”

Until now, when Gwangwoon brought in new affiliates, they didn’t treat them like forgotten props but found ways to maximize their growth.

And under Gwangwoon, affiliates always turned to profit and showed huge growth.

“That’s exactly what captured shareholder sentiment. They already know through multiple cases that under our Gwangwoon, at least they won’t lose.”

“So this is good for us? Bluezone is a giant dinosaur. Seems like lots of places money needs to go. And their performance has been bad lately.”

“Yes. But it’s still Bluezone. What our Gwangwoon needs most is platform expansion. There’s no place like Bluezone for that. Especially being able to spread KW Coin more widely. Above all, server facilities are the key.”

Gwangwoon was already having headaches from server problems.

In such circumstances, capturing Bluezone to control BWS?

“Then the server problem that’s been plaguing us gets solved at once. I think President Jeong Jin-ho also gambled precisely to solve the KW Coin and server problems.”

Turning pirates attacking ships into an opportunity, gambling by cutting off semiconductor supply too.

Felt it multiple times while gaming too.

This Jin-ho kid was a beast beyond just having nerves of steel.

“Then we have no reason to refuse.”

“Yes. It’s good for us, but there’s one problem.”

“What problem?”

“The US government. This isn’t just anywhere—it’s Bluezone. If we eat this, US government restrictions will start immediately. For monopoly.”

Both America and Europe are sensitive about monopolies.

Hadn’t they actually joined forces to blow up Gwangwoon Shipping before?

Of course, that ended up being great profit for Gwangwoon.

“But Bluezone has been running fine until now?”

“Yes. But another company coming in to acquire is a different issue. Though we haven’t entered America, we’re running major e-commerce in Korea. Plus we’re running large servers ourselves.”

“They can certainly nitpick. We’re foreign capital, and having already eaten SNS, swallowing e-commerce too could be frightening for the US government.”

Thinking about it, that was right. The company running the world’s largest SNS suddenly takes over e-commerce?

If they could explode e-commerce market growth through already impactful SNS and even had self-issued KW Coin, the US government couldn’t leave this alone.

“But aren’t Ampl and Microhard technically monopolies too? They’re leaving them alone.”

“Yes. It’s not that there were no restrictions at all. But they didn’t split the companies. Because America also does politics through votes. If they split those two companies for monopoly, laid-off workers would pour out, stock price would fall and draw public anger.”

In other words, they feared public opinion.

“Plus those two companies spread quite a bit of money to political circles. Through lobbying, they minimize damage to the company from monopoly restrictions.”

Of course, they can’t completely avoid monopoly restrictions.

They just put on shows outwardly to appear like politicians are firmly gripping conglomerates.

“Wingard and Whiterock know that too. That if we take Bluezone’s management rights, the US government will step in.”

“So?”

“They say they’re already doing groundwork to control public opinion. The company they invested hard in can’t be split for monopoly. We should also match that by spreading money to media while coordinating with American political figures.”

At those words, Hwang Dae-woon slowly nodded.

He’d already been spreading money to America under the guise of advertising and political donations for a while.

Because after Gwangwoon Shipping was forcibly torn apart, Hwang Dae-woon realized they needed to make many people in political circles who could be on their side.

“Seems like I need to visit America after a while.”

“Yes. I’ll make preparations immediately.”

And now seemed like the time to harvest that fruit.

***

There’s a saying about catching a mouse while walking backwards.

This seemed exactly like that situation.

“Thanks to purchasing shares as the President instructed, we seem to have stayed within the line. And no one probably expected Bluezone to blow up internally like that.”

Following intuition, I had been gradually purchasing Bluezone shares.

But the timing worked out really well.

That Bluezone would collapse internally on its own and hand us management rights—I truly couldn’t have imagined.

“Thanks to this, the server problem will definitely be solved. We can spread KW Coin faster too.”

But problems still remained.

“What about the monopoly issue?”

“I was worried about that too, but headquarters says not to worry at all.”

“Huh?”

“The Chairman said so. He’ll take care of problems like that, so just do what needs to be done.”

As expected of my hyung-nim.

His aura just flows magnificently.

I don’t know what method he’s using.

But one thing I know is that hyung-nim absolutely never goes back on his word.

“Then let’s proceed trusting the Chairman. Please solve the server problem immediately once we receive management rights.”

“Yes. I’ll coordinate so there’s no friction.”

Feels like a big burden lifted.

It was a time when cracks were starting to show from server overload, and who would have thought Bluezone would help us like this?

“Also, President. This is a request from the scholarship foundation.”

“What is it?”

“Hasn’t there been a massive winter storm recently? So the US and Canada regions have suffered extensive damage. A warning was issued for 36 out of 48 US states.”

Winter storm Elliott.

Due to global warming, a storm that comes maybe once in 100 years swept through, burying all of America in snow.

Cities were paralyzed, snow piled up so much rescue teams had trouble entering, temperatures dropped to minus 45 degrees.

Already thousands of casualties.

“So they want to cooperate with our foundation base in America to send support from Korea to help.”

“It won’t be dangerous, right? I hear the storm is quite severe.”

“By the time our side goes over, the storm should have passed, so it should be fine. The problem is the foundation’s requests this time are a bit excessive.”

I looked through the requests.

First, donations worth hundreds of billions of won, and there were many things we needed to procure through shipping and planes.

“…….”

But right there, I felt my intuition spreading with a tingle.

It seemed dissatisfied with this content.

Rather than conveying to lower the donation amount, it seemed to stimulate me to send more.

“You think it’s too much, Department Head?”

“Yes. We already made a large donation to Saudi Arabia. To donate this scale here too…….”

The meaning was that doing good is fine, but in moderation.

But my intuition seemed to think the opposite.

“Doing lots of good deeds is good, right? Plus, while we’re at it, splashing out generously doesn’t look bad. Let’s double it.”

“Huh?”

“The donations and goods listed here, double all of them. And as soon as we get Bluezone management, spray KW Coin to disaster victims to help them freely buy goods through Bluezone.”

Beyond just my intuition, even without this I would have gladly sent more donations and goods.

Isn’t there a saying that the more you share, the more happiness doubles?

Because I believe that saying is right.

***

“These cunning bastards, trying to use this national disaster to turn public opinion to their side?”

Aiden was seething at Gwangwoon’s moves.

America was in chaos, declaring a national disaster due to the unprecedented winter storm Elliott that suddenly swept in.

Right at that timing, Gwangwoon snatched away Bluezone’s management rights.

They had aimed for when people’s attention was elsewhere.

On top of that, these guys were using the weakened hearts of disaster victims, spraying KW Coin to force usage of Bluezone.

“But the donation sprayed this time is large enough to become a big topic. Over $1 billion was dropped.”

Other companies did a few million dollars at most.

But as if showing a different class entirely, Gwangwoon casually threw $1 billion.

“They actually got off cheap. If they really tried to take over Bluezone, it would have cost another $100 billion? But they just throw $1 billion and act generous.”

That’s why they were called cunning.

When someone throws such a huge donation while the entire nation is suffering, naturally they’d get attention and public opinion would side with them.

“On top of that, Wingard and Whiterock are also joining in, spreading money to media to improve Gwangwoon’s public opinion. SNS goes without saying. If even slightly negative talk about Gwangwoon comes out, PikPik and Faceweb are completely blocking it.”

If Bluezone was taken over, Gwangwoon should be judged for monopoly.

But looking at current public opinion flow, it wasn’t easy.

Even congressmen from the same party were hesitating seeing public opinion tilted toward Gwangwoon.

Elections were coming soon, so they too were watching citizens’ moods.

If they carelessly provoked and massive layoffs occurred, and Gwangwoon triggered another major financial crisis using that as an excuse, politicians’ careers would definitely end.

“But should we really just watch this? PMC and now this too? I absolutely cannot accept this, John.”

So this time Aiden was also trying to push hard.

“…….”

“Why aren’t you saying anything?”

“Mr. President. I’m sorry, but I’d like to resign from chief of staff.”

“!?”

Aiden was startled.

“N-no, suddenly why? Did I perhaps upset you?”

“No. I’m just……… tired. You know, don’t you? That chiefs of staff usually can’t last 2 years.”

“B-but we’ve done well. If you need vacation, tell me. I’ll take care of it.”

“It’s not about that.”

John’s voice started trembling.

“Actually, I’m scared now.”

“Scared?”

“Gwangwoon. A report came in from Nigeria this time. Politicians who opposed Gwangwoon have all gone missing. It looks like they got swept up in civil war, but you know, don’t you, Mr. President? Now Gwangwoon is even using PMC for covert operations.”

Aiden grabbed him.

“Calm down. That’s Nigeria. This is America.”

“No. You’ve already seen it, Mr. President. Gwangwoon has taken control of SNS, media, and massive financial powers. They’re pulling public opinion to their side too. What’s happening in Nigeria will now happen in America too.”

“……..!”

“I have a family to take care of. What if I accidentally get caught by Gwangwoon and my family suffers too? I’ve been waking up from nightmares every day worrying about that.”

John shook off Aiden’s hand.

“I’m sorry. But I also have things to protect, and I don’t think I can handle this fear anymore. Really…… I’m really sorry. Mr. President. I’ll make sure to set up a successor as quickly as possible.”

“……..”

Aiden couldn’t stop John as he quietly left the presidential office.

Because it was the first time he’d seen that man—a former soldier who’d even gone to war—terrified to this degree.

“………….”

Aiden slumped blankly into his seat.

Noise rang loudly in his head and everything before his eyes seemed to blur.

Now he truly felt like he was alone.

<End of Chapter 160>