Chapter 69

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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“Wait. When did you prepare all this?”

“Looks good, right? Not many cars pass through here so traffic is convenient, and we prepared parking up to the 3rd basement floor of this building.”

Hyung-nim widened his eyes looking at the building being erected high.

“So this is that landmark-like place you’ve been talking about since before?”

“Yes. I bought some land around here since early last year, and recently one place came up for auction. They say it was under construction then stopped due to funding issues. When I inspected it thoroughly by connecting with the construction side, they said it was well-made from the foundation. Plus this location doesn’t seem bad either.”

From when I first made money, there was one goal I always told hyung-nim about.

That I wanted to create a space where our guild members including me and hyung-nim could gather together to play games and have fun.

Decorating with our game’s background as interior design to make an entire floor like a PC room, and above that bowling, billiards, table tennis, karaoke, a restaurant with professional chefs, etc.

I tried to build a building that would be every man’s dream.

But building a new building wasn’t as easy as expected.

There were more than one or two things to worry about.

Since work was also busy, I just picked regions a bit away from Seoul without much traffic congestion and bought a few plots of land where my intuition hit.

Then after hearing that a 10-story building about to be completed came up for auction, I thoroughly checked it and immediately bought it.

“Completion will probably be around mid-year. Interior will also be completely finished by then.”

“But what’s this? You’re making a restaurant with a professional chef? Will you receive guests too?”

“No. We’ll just use it among ourselves, right? Well, when entertaining guests or having a drink with hyung-nim, we can drop by occasionally.”

“You’re really going to waste money.”

This was all thanks to hyung-nim pulling me out from being stuck in a small room and getting me employed.

“Wait. Sauna and bathhouse? Plus even a screen golf course? Can only our guild members use all this?”

“Yes. Hyung-nim should also come often to use it. Tell your family to come too. We’ll use the game room among ourselves, but other facilities can be used by family too.”

A very luxurious space with no profit whatsoever, filled with my dreams.

But that’s okay.

Even if maintenance costs tens of billions per month, compared to the wealth I have, it’s like scooping the Han River with a ladle.

“But you said this is Dongtan?”

“Yes.”

“Is there any talk about development here?”

“I think there was excitement about some development. Both when I bought the land and now, there’s no particular issue. So land prices are cheap too.”

There’s a reason I deliberately chose here.

No population, and no traffic jams.

In Seoul, it was always traffic hell whenever I tried to go anywhere.

“Ahh. This is big trouble. Once this is completed, I’ll really want to come every day.”

“Come anytime. There’s no better place to play quietly.”

Not bustling like Seoul but quiet, with plenty of entertainment.

Our guild’s first hideout.

***

“From Amvidia?”

“Yes. They requested a meeting due to transportation issues. Amvidia CEO Tony Huang says he’ll personally fly to Korea. But since this is a shipping issue, the group seems to have passed it to our Gwangwoon Shipping.”

President Kim Du-yeong put down the report he was reading.

“Because of TSNC?”

“Yes. With the Bitcoin craze, isn’t there a graphics card shortage crisis now? The problem is chips need to be produced and handed over by TSNC, but since Gwangwoon Shipping is completely controlling transportation there, Amvidia can only stamp their feet.”

So the Amvidia CEO was coming all the way to Korea.

To beg them to please open the sea route.

But what to do about this.

“I want to open it but I don’t have the authority.”

Due to the Tianjin Port explosion accident and Dragon Sea Alliance dissolution, the logistics crisis is still in full swing.

Globally, there’s no place that can match Gwangwoon Shipping’s influence.

Already achieved overwhelming industry first place long ago.

If there’s exactly one place, it would be Rusk, a Danish shipping company.

At least that place is taking pie from the European side.

“They probably didn’t know that either.”

Looking superficially, since Gwangwoon Shipping is directly blocking the sea route, they seemed to think talking with that representative would resolve things well.

But the one who planned and executed blocking the sea route wasn’t President Kim Du-yeong.

“That Gwangwoon Shipping only moves on President Jeong Jin-ho’s orders.”

Actually there was some noise inside Gwangwoon Shipping too.

A shipping company in name, with a truckload of people who swam in this field for decades, yet why follow only a securities firm president’s words?

But after the Dragon Sea Alliance incident, the atmosphere completely changed.

People who’d jump into a fire pit at one word from Jeong Jin-ho.

“Talking with us for a hundred days won’t help.”

Tony Huang probably is coming to negotiate.

But even so, there was nothing President Kim Du-yeong could do.

Because what can release this suffocating siege depends solely on Jeong Jin-ho, not China, not Kangsung.

***

“President. Here are Amvidia-related materials.”

Amvidia.

The world’s largest graphics card manufacturing company.

To the degree that game quality changes depending on what graphics card you have, it was an extremely important spec element for gamers like us.

But the reason I’m looking at Amvidia materials now wasn’t to change computers.

I was examining materials because their CEO says he’ll personally fly to Korea.

“Currently the stock price rose to $130, and market cap is fluctuating between 50-60 billion.”

Indeed befitting that reputation, Amvidia was growing greatly.

Also, coinciding with this Bitcoin craze, the stock price even jumped up.

“But it’ll only be briefly. Rumors are gradually spreading now. That because TSNC can’t meet volume, Amvidia can’t produce the new product they should release soon.”

The solution is simple.

Just have Gwangwoon Shipping do transportation so raw materials can enter TSNC.

“What if we don’t open the route at all?”

“They’ll somehow find another method. Though Gwangwoon Shipping is overwhelmingly first in the shipping business, there’s also Rusk, a Danish shipping company. Probably since it’s the next largest place after Gwangwoon, there’s high possibility of using there. Even if transportation costs are expensive, they first need to make products, so they’ll transport without thinking about price.

When a coin craze is blowing like now causing a crisis, shouldn’t they produce and sell even one more graphics card?

“Then they can somehow resolve it?”

“Yes. Though there’s the problem of manufacturing costs jumping due to skyrocketing transport prices, they’ll somehow see resolution. So rather than that, if you have good conversation with Tony Huang to resolve it..”

Trying to dry up and kill TSNC wasn’t my idea.

Chairman Kang Seong-ho requested my help to dominate the foundry market.

But Tony Huang and people think I’m commanding from the front to isolate TSNC.

‘Should I call Chairman Kang Seong-ho to meet together?’

Having a three-way meeting to reduce production entrusted to TSNC and have more outsourcing to Kangsung seemed better.

‘But I don’t feel anything particular.’

With the Bitcoin craze, Amvidia’s stock price is rising.

Usually at times like this, my intuition would hit saying to hold this stock, but such signs didn’t appear.

‘Could it mean the stock price will go down again?’

Then intuition would have come saying to short, but there was nothing like that either.

Perhaps because it thinks it’s small change to enter now?

As my investment funds and profit amounts increased, my intuition also seems to no longer react to small waters.

“…”

Or perhaps there’s still insufficient information about Amvidia.

Doesn’t my intuition always activate based on information?

So I slowly examined Amvidia-related materials.

Stock price growth rate.

Governance structure.

Currently developing products, etc.

While reading through the report without gain like that.

“..?”

My gaze caught on one part.

None other than a list of companies currently competing with Amvidia.

‘AMC?’

The world’s second-largest graphics card manufacturer.

This place uniquely was also making CPUs together.

But whether trying to make both was too greedy, AMC wasn’t showing particular strength anywhere.

Thanks to that, a few weeks ago the stock price even dropped to $2 and is quite shaky.

“Ah. AMC. Though CEO Lisa Wu took office newly about 3 years ago and is causing various reforms, they’re losing in technology and infrastructure, everything to Amvidia. Here too, the stock price that dropped to $2 with the Bitcoin craze is staying around $3 again.”

Market cap is staying between 4 to 5 billion dollars.

Compared to Amvidia exceeding 50 billion in market cap, it was a pitifully small size.

As employees said, performance was also the worst, to the degree it wouldn’t be strange if they closed doors tomorrow.

“…”

But why?

What my intuition is brightly illuminating right now isn’t Amvidia but exactly this AMC company.

“How’s the governance structure here?”

“Saudi Fund is the largest shareholder at 10%, and the rest of the stock is all scattered. Though institutions hold a few percent each, when the stock price dropped to $2 many escaped, so there’s no largest shareholder besides 10%. Plus 60% of shares are all circulating in the market.”

In other words, a company that all the big hands abandoned and left.

Though CEO Lisa Wu is somehow trying to save the company through innovation, it was far from enough to surpass Amvidia.

“…”

But troublingly, my intuition was pointing to this company.

“Right now AMC is in the same difficulty as Amvidia. Here too, TSNC is handling the foundry. The fortunate thing is Amvidia’s scale is so large that changing foundry once causes big bleeding, but here the scale is small so switching is fast.”

There’s a reason Amvidia insists on TSNC.

Even though we’re intentionally drying up and killing TSNC like this, continuing to deal with them is because the production system is already set up that way.

If they forcibly try to change to Kangsung, they must endure great bleeding.

Rather than pay those costs, they were trying to negotiate with us to get volume from TSNC again.

But AMC is small in scale, so changing foundries wouldn’t be a big problem.

Even now, cooperating with Kangsung to remake production lines is possible in a short time.

Seeing this, I seemed to understand why Chairman Kang Seong-ho is pressuring TSNC so much.

There was nowhere in semiconductors that TSNC’s influence doesn’t reach.

‘So it’s telling me to buy AMC stock now? Sell later when it rises?’

I wrote “buy” next to AMC with my pen.

But the reaction is very weak.

“AMC keeps looking for an acquirer. Like other big hands all pulled out, the Saudi Fund side also wants someone to take shares even at bargain prices. They probably know. That like Amvidia, AMC can’t receive semiconductors from TSNC, so can’t make the next product.”

Right there, the weak intuition sharply stimulated me.

“How much do they want to sell shares for?”

“We’d probably need to negotiate with them, but they definitely want to put it out cheaper than market price. Because if they release all that volume, there’s no one to buy immediately, and if the production shortage bad news breaks, the price will fall more. But they haven’t found an acquirer for 3 years.”

In other words, even lasting 3 years was amazing…That’s right.

This time instead of “buy,” I tried writing “acquire” next to it.

“!?”

Then force entered strongly enough to punch a hole in the paper.

“They tried acquisition negotiations several times. But everyone gave up in the end. First there’s the giant competitor Amvidia, and above all, though the price to acquire shares isn’t large, this CEO is shouting innovation too much. So the costs going into that are considerable. They say minimum technology field investment requires hundreds of billions to trillions of won..”

I cut off Manager Seo’s words.

“This place.”

“Yes?”

“Should we acquire it?”

“..?”

***

Chairman Hwang Dae-woon is spending each day gratefully.

Didn’t he almost end up on the street after making a group before?

Then he painfully realized his vessel wasn’t large enough to establish a group and was just satisfied as securities firm president.

But do dreams come true?

Thanks to Jin-ho, he established a group and even gained the chairman title.

And the company only grows explosively day by day.

So he was always grateful.

While on the other hand, both shoulders felt heavy. Because he felt the burden a large group chairman gives, and society’s attention level rose tangibly.

“New city? What’s that got to do with us?”

“Isn’t it a massive project the government is pushing this year? They’d probably like large company cooperation. So they’re asking for some investment.”

Like President Trent’s new administration launching, our country also got a new administration.

Naturally they won’t want to ruin newly proceeding projects.

“Hmm. What can I do? When they ask to cooperate a bit, I have to.”

Companies inevitably have to watch the government’s mood.

Because if they decide to bother you, there’s no more annoying opponent.

“So where are the development regions?”

“Yes. I brought the list.”

As the group’s chairman, so our Jin-ho can focus only on investment without interference, the chairman should handle things like this.

Let’s see.

“Suwon, Pangyo, Gwanggyo.. Hmm?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Dongtan?”

“Ah, yes. That’s the core development region. They newly opened a train station so you can reach Seoul in 5 minutes is the current plan. So after this development region announcement, land prices there rose at least 5 times.”

Hwang Dae-woon blinked hearing that.

“By any chance, Chairman. Did you buy land in Dongtan?”

“No. I didn’t buy it, but..”

Jin-ho said when he sees good sites to build buildings, he first buys them.

“Is, is that all in Dongtan?”

Amazingly, it was all in Dongtan.

“Wait. President Jeong, how on earth did he know that? They say the government was also extremely careful so information wouldn’t leak.”

“Just lucky.”

But to simply say lucky, the timing is subtle.

‘Could this guy..’

Did he have all the information beforehand about where would be developed?