Chapter 98

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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The French government that at first closed eyes and ears, concentrating on suppressing angry crowds with force.

Amid concerns that riots would go long-term like this, President Péron directly stepped forward.

“He ultimately raised the white flag. I thought he’d endure to the end.”

“No matter how much President Péron rose up with overwhelming approval ratings, when the situation becomes like this, he has no choice. Protesters were spreading with momentum to burn everything.”

President Péron withdrew all bills he wanted to push.

From fuel tax that was the biggest problem to rich tax cuts, and even digital tax.

It wasn’t a postponement.

Literally he made them blank.

To avoid suspicion that he’d wait until public opinion calmed down then push again, he even made a promise.

That during his term he’d absolutely not bring out those policies.

“Then we don’t need to worry for a while?”

“Yes. Since President Péron firmly drove the nail through his statement, unless the regime changes, there won’t be pushing this policy again.”

Meaning we passed one hurdle.

“Right. You suffered much.”

“No. I just worked as usual.”

“Haha. Thanks to that, that bastard Péron will have seizures just seeing our Gwangwoon. Oh right. I heard. You’re thinking of delivering donations?”

To lighten this heavy heart, I tried to donate to France through my personal expenses and company level. I was thinking of helping a bit in restoring the city.

“Our company filtered out all places smelling like scammers and selected a list, but how much cost are you thinking?”

“About 100 billion.”

“A-a hundred billion?”

“Is it too much?”

“Because usually even when companies donate, they don’t do that much.”

“But compared to the money we made this time, isn’t it modest?”

“That’s true too.”

100 billion isn’t an amount my intuition decided.

Should I say it’s just conveying my apologetic heart?

But this too I must consult with hyungnim first.

I can’t use our company’s money as I please.

“Well, since we decided to go big anyway, let’s go with 200 billion. France did harass us, but thanks to that we made a ton of money. So Jin-ho. Should we rather establish a foundation?”

“A foundation?”

“Yeah. It’s not just a few hundred billion but several trillion. It’ll be an amount other centers would have difficulty suddenly handling. Surely inside there’ll also be people harboring greed for that money. So we make and operate a foundation.”

“So we can manage as transparently as possible?”

“Yeah. Major corporations also usually establish foundations to donate. Of course.. There are cases of making them for tax evasion or slush fund creation, but these days government surveillance is strict so they say they can’t do it like before.”

Hearing it, it seemed like a good idea.

Wasn’t I always worrying about how to use this money that keeps piling up?

I tried building buildings, investing here and there, buying good cars and luxury goods for my parents and giving them economic freedom, but when I opened my eyes again, my bank balance piled up far more than before.

And I’m not particularly interested in being extravagant.

Even buying good cars, since the driver drives for me, that too lacked feeling.

“That’s me too. Well, originally I can’t say much being born with a golden spoon. Being extravagant isn’t much. Instead I spend excitedly when gaming. That’s the most fun.”

“Me too. And when spending money for our family, I still felt and was happy like I succeeded.”

“So you want to contribute a bit to society?”

“It’s simply personal satisfaction, but acquiring the baseball team this time, I realized one thing.”

“Huh? Baseball team?”

To become a pro baseball player, you must enter the draft list.

To enter there, from student days through bloody effort you must pass through amateur and receive recognition.

So to raise such players, parents’ hardships are no small matter.

While selecting players on the draft list with my intuition this time, I thought this.

Surely in our country too there are players who could dominate the world, but might they not rise due to financial problems?

“More concrete than expected.”

“Yes. When they have outstanding talent but can’t fully bloom their talent and disappear just because they lack money, isn’t that too regrettable? I want to help such people. Though this time starting with sending donations to France, going forward I’ll spend most amounts domestically to discover such talented people.”

Arts and physical education, medicine, law, science, literature, etc.

Without distinguishing fields, I was thinking of comprehensively utilizing my intuition to select and help talented people.

Then wouldn’t it help this country’s future far more than simply throwing money?

***

“President. All positions finished settling.”

This was probably the moment our team members including me waited for most.

“So.. How much?”

“After settling all positions excluding all fees and calculating only net profit..”

Manager Seo swallowed once then continued speaking.

“We made about 5 trillion won profit.”

“5, 5 trillion won?!”

“No. Th-then now the money our Prime department can operate became 15 trillion won?”

Employees’ reaction was hottest.

“President. Congratulations. This time too you wrote another history in Korea.. No. The world financial world.”

“Though saying this will make you cringe, I’m truly honored to be with you at this historic moment.”

To team members’ embarrassing congratulations, I shook my head.

“Why is everyone like this? I just did what I always do.”

“Haha. Right. Then President. Are you taking vacation for a while? The France situation also seems to be wrapping up.. Besides France now there’s no particular market causing volatility.”

When I became securities president, I thought I’d be busy every day, but I wasn’t.

Because except directly investing, Vice President handles the rest of the work.

So there wasn’t particularly a vacation concept.

When needing to invest, I come to work, and when judging there’s no market volatility, I just rest at home receiving only important reports.

“Plus 15 trillion won came into our hands, wouldn’t it be wasteful to just let it sit?”

“I knew it!”

Then Hye-rin who was clapping with employees beside me raised her arm high.

“I prepared materials!”

As expected, team members knew my disposition well.

That I absolutely can’t stand seeing money just piling up.

“These are lists we can put in safe assets like before.”

As amounts got bigger, now it was time for us to have fund-like thinking.

Looking at funds representing each country including ours, their amount units differ.

Just looking at our employees, they’re jumping for joy that 15 trillion won came and trembling hands and feet about how to handle this money, but to large funds, 15 trillion won was a laughable amount.

Don’t these funds handle money exceeding at least 100 trillion won?

Even just Kangsung Fund currently has hundreds of trillions won gathered, and before long will achieve 1,000 trillion.

Of course, even though that money is all customers’ money and isn’t money massed in just one fund, still there’s power that scale has.

And where they mainly put money is safe assets.

There are funds pursuing high risk and high profit rates, but actually there are far more funds pursuing safety.

That’s why fund-like thinking is needed.

First burying money in safe assets.

“…”

So I’m examining stocks carefully, but something’s strange.

Usually by the time pages turn this much, one or two should’ve already reacted with intuition.

But there’s no word.

Whether lights flicker, or tingles like shooting a taser gun.

There was no feeling.

“Are there other materials?”

“Ah. This collected recent issues. Since so many various things happened, other places are relatively quiet, but among them the currently most attention-getting is probably this.”

The protagonist in the report Hye-rin shows is none other than Europe’s emperor, the world’s black history, Britain.

“As you know, 2 years ago Brexit passed by popular vote, right? Even then we thought Britain would quickly Brexit, but they’re still remaining in the EU.”

Because of France protests, people’s interest is low, but actually the most ridiculous is Britain.

When did they decide Brexit by vote, yet still dragging on.

After the prime minister who expressed resignation after Brexit, Theresa March who became Britain’s new prime minister was Britain’s second woman prime minister in history, and we thought she’d wrap up Brexit well.

But negotiations still have no progress.

So now Britain is in chaos far more than France in a different sense.

“Since they dragged so much, markets now reached a level of not reacting..”

In early Brexit, British markets shook tremendously.

But as 2 years passed, British markets also found stability.

As Brexit cancellation possibility became very high, they reached a stage of not even reacting anymore.

“…”

So I also received the report Hye-rin hands over without particular thought.

Here too isn’t a place with much current volatility, so probably even examining the report there’s no particular feeling..

“!?”

But that seemed to be my mistake.

As soon as I received the report Hye-rin hands over, intuition that was calm until now rang in my head, and from my fingertips strong chills arose spreading through my whole body.

And before my eyes one vivid video unfolded.

It was British people finally escaping the EU waving flags in joy.

***

“Then there’s no more damage to us?”

“Yes, Chairman. Didn’t the French government completely lower their tail? Since they made policies blank, semiconductor-related taxes also won’t be imposed.”

Kang Seong-ho exhaled a sigh of relief.

Already funds invested in Europe are much, but here France brought digital tax bills causing chaos, nearly making all Europe raise taxes so money would’ve gone out several times more.

“Certainly the world changed much. Who knew riots would grow this quickly?”

“That’s why they say since smartphones, what changed the world is SNS. If Gwangwoon hadn’t led PicPic to form public opinion and collaborate with Faceweb and other media companies this time, they’d absolutely never have withdrawn policies.”

While thinking it’s fortunate, on the other hand it sent chills down his spine.

Before, he thought Jeong Jin-ho invested too much time and cost in SNS.

He thought it’d be better to invest more money in semiconductors, the present and future food source.

But through this incident, Jeong Jin-ho proved why he devoted so much effort to SNS.

Didn’t SNS called PicPic properly shake that France?

How scary media power is.

What kind of things you can cause by inciting people with it.

He vividly showed that tremendous power.

And that became Gwangwoon’s tremendous weapon.

‘Simply making money alone can’t have power?’

It’s not an era where rising to high positions means you can wield power freely anymore.

Who can move crowds’ hearts.

That was true power.

“And Chairman. Gwangwoon newly established a foundation this time.”

“Hm? Foundation? You mean donating?”

“Yes. Opening the foundation this time, they’re donating a whopping 200 billion to France.”

“200 billion? No. Why so much..”

But there were reasons for everything.

“They’re clearly planting a flag. Didn’t I report to you before that some specific force invested a whopping 10 trillion won in our country’s money into French securities taking massive short positions?”

“Right. That’s really Gwangwoon?”

“Yes. Though there’s no evidence it’s really Gwangwoon yet, circulating rumors say so. Since French securities took quite a hit from this protest, they must’ve earned at least trillions even if not earning much, so they’re throwing a bit as a commission concept.”

So should we see it as like the strong showing mercy to the weak?

But to opponents it’ll feel like mockery.

Gwangwoon caused massive protests against France and behind threw in 10 trillion won making it into scorched earth taking war trophies.

And threw 200 billion like showing favor.

Eat this and cool down.

Perhaps to opponents there’s nothing more humiliating than this.

What’s funny is even being angry, there’s no method to retaliate.

“President Jeong that guy.. Has more grudges than expected.”

“If policies had passed this time, it would’ve dealt tremendous damage to Gwangwoon. It’s proper retaliation.”

Since they dared touch his territory, he gave certain punishment.

As expected, behind that gentle face lives the world’s scariest beast.

That’s why it’s sometimes chilling.

When drinking and playing together, there’s no more comfortable and good younger sibling than this.

“But Chairman. This Gwangwoon Foundation’s direction is a bit unusual.”

“What do you mean again?”

“Though they sent donations to France this time, going forward they plan to spend money maximally on geniuses in the country. Through all fields too.”

“All fields?”

“Yes. Literally all fields.”

There Kang Seong-ho blinked eyes momentarily.

Why would Gwangwoon Foundation be made?

At first he thought because the money sent to France was large in scale, they temporarily made it.

But actually that was merely a pretext.

“There’s another purpose?”

“Certainly. Though I’m being presumptuous.. Didn’t our Kangsung also long ago establish a foundation steadily preparing the company’s future?”

That many who received scholarships from Kangsung Foundation became judges and prosecutors is already widely known fact.

Though Kangsung denied doing so for such purpose, that they gained much benefit through them was undeniable.

But Gwangwoon was going one step further.

Sprinkling overflowing money earned across all fields to make them knights who’ll protect Gwangwoon’s future.

Kangsung Foundation concentrated money maximally on the law side, but Gwangwoon wanted to spread influence across all fields.

As this incident shows, the world changed.

“Gwangwoon will dominate all fields?”

“Yes. Though they won’t shine immediately now, if they keep sprinkling money like that raising sprouts..”

“Later even wanting to block, you can’t.”

“Yes. Still fortunate is, not concentrating on one field but concentrating on all fields sprinkling money isn’t efficient. Not knowing what’ll burst where either. Possibility of just wasting money is also very high.”

Wasting money.

No. That’s saying it because you don’t know Jeong Jin-ho.

The Jeong Jin-ho Kang Seong-ho knows doesn’t carelessly spend even 1 won.

Using France as pretext to put on a show sending even 200 billion suddenly establishing a foundation, there are reasons for everything.

Especially saying they’ll sprinkle scholarships regardless of field means they’re confident raising talented future core personnel.

In investment, there won’t be anyone who can follow Jeong Jin-ho’s sense.

‘Then in the near future, only Gwangwoon’s people will be spread everywhere?’

The problem is there’s no method to block runaway Gwangwoon.

When even the French government kneeled before Gwangwoon, how can Kangsung block it?

Like wealth is, so is power.

Once receiving acceleration, that power grows uncontrollably.

In the near future dominating this Korea, and in the not-so-distant future Gwangwoon that will dominate the whole world.

Maintaining friendly relations as is like now.

That was the only path Kang Seong-ho should take for this Kangsung’s future.