Money Keeps Piling Up No Matter How Much I Spend

Chapter 98

Translator: DreamscribeAt first, the French government focused on suppressing the angry crowds with force, shutting its eyes and ears.

Amid concerns that the riots might become prolonged, President Perron personally stepped in.

“In the end, they raised the white flag. I thought they’d hold out until the end.”

“No matter how overwhelmingly Perron rose in the polls, in a situation like this, there’s no choice. The protests were spreading with the momentum to burn everything down.”

President Perron withdrew all the policies he had intended to implement.

Starting with the most controversial fuel tax, followed by the tax cuts for the wealthy, and even the digital tax.

It wasn’t a suspension.

It was literally scrapped.

To avoid suspicion that he might bring it back once public opinion settled down, he even made a public promise.

He said he would never introduce those policies again during his term.

“So, we don’t have to worry about it for a while?”

“Yes. Since President Perron made it clear in an official statement, unless the administration changes, there won’t be any move to reintroduce those policies.”

It meant they had passed one critical hurdle.

“Right. You’ve gone through a lot.”

“No, not really. I just did what I normally do.”

“Ha ha. Thanks to that, that bastard Perron will have a fit just at the mention of Kwangwoon. Oh, by the way, I heard about it. You’re thinking of donating, right?”

To ease this heavy heart, I was planning to make a donation to France, both personally and through the company. I thought of giving a bit of support for the city’s recovery.

“Our company filtered out all the suspicious-looking organizations and drew up a list, but how much are you thinking of donating?”

“Around 100 billion won.”

“O-one hundred billion?”

“Is that too much?”

“Even when companies donate, it’s rare to go that far.”

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

“Well, that’s true.”

The 100 billion wasn’t an amount I decided on intuition.

It was just a way to express my feeling of guilt.

But even so, I need to discuss this with hyung first.

I can’t just use our company’s money as I please, can I?

“Well, since we’ve already decided to go big, let’s make it 200 billion. France may have given us trouble, but thanks to them, we made a ton of money. So, Jin-ho, how about this? Why don’t we just set up a foundation?”

“A foundation?”

“Yeah. This isn’t just a few hundred million, we’re talking several hundred billion. That’s an amount existing centers would have a hard time handling suddenly. There will definitely be people within those places who get greedy about the money. So, we should create our own foundation and run it ourselves.”

“So that we can manage it as transparently as possible?”

“Exactly. Most large corporations set up foundations when they make donations, don’t they? Of course… some do it for tax evasion or slush funds, but these days, government oversight is so strict, it’s not as easy as it used to be.”

Come to think of it, it did sound like a good idea.

Hadn’t I been constantly wondering how best to use all this money that kept piling up?

I built buildings, made various investments here and there, bought my parents luxury cars and high-end goods, and gave them financial freedom, but after waking up again, my bank account had grown even more than before.

And I didn’t find luxury all that fun, anyway.

Even if I bought a nice car, the driver was the one driving, so I didn’t really feel anything from it.

“Same here. Well, I can’t say much since I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. But I’m not really into extravagance. I just splurge when I’m gaming. That’s the most fun.”

“Me too. And when I spend money on my family, I get this satisfying feeling that I’ve made it, and it feels good.”

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

“It might be just for my own satisfaction, but I realized something while acquiring the baseball team.”

“Huh? The baseball team?”

To become a professional baseball player, you have to make it into the draft list.

To get there, you have to go through grueling effort from your student days, pass through the amateur stages, and gain recognition.

Because of that, raising a player involves an immense amount of effort from the parents.

While selecting players for the draft list this time using my intuition, that thought crossed my mind.

Surely, there must be athletes in our country who could dominate the world, but perhaps they can’t rise due to financial problems.

“You’ve thought it through more specifically than I expected.”

“Yes. It’s heartbreaking when someone with exceptional talent can’t fully blossom and ends up disappearing just because they don’t have money. I want to help people like that. Though we’re starting by sending donations to France this time, I plan to use most of the funds domestically in the future to discover such talented individuals.”

Arts and sports, medicine, law, science, literature, and so on.

Without narrowing it down to specific fields, I was planning to use my intuition broadly to identify and support talented people.

Wouldn’t that be far more beneficial to the future of this country than simply throwing money around?

***

“CEO-nim. All positions have been cleared.”

This might have been the moment our team members, including myself, had waited for the most.

“So… how much is it?”

“After clearing all positions and deducting all fees, the net profit amounts to…”

Department Head Seo swallowed dryly once before continuing.

“Approximately 5 trillion won in profit.”

“F-five trillion won?!”

“Then… does that mean our Prime Department now has 15 trillion won to manage?”

The staff’s reactions were the most enthusiastic.

“Congratulations, CEO-nim. Once again, you’ve made history in the financial world, not just in Korea, but globally.”

“This may sound a bit cheesy, but I feel truly honored to be part of this historic moment.”

At the team’s over-the-top congratulations, I shook my head.

“Why are you all saying this? I just did what I always do.”

“Ha ha. That’s true. So then, CEO-nim, are you going on a vacation for a while? The France situation seems to be wrapping up... and at the moment, there’s no market out there with volatility worth reacting to other than France.”

I thought becoming the ceo of a securities company would mean being busy every day, but that wasn’t the case.

That’s because aside from the investments I handle personally, the Vice President takes care of the rest.

So the concept of a vacation didn’t really apply.

When it was time to invest, I went to work; when I judged that there was no market volatility, I simply stayed home and received only the important reports.

“Besides, now that we’ve got 15 trillion won on hand, wouldn’t it be a waste to just let it sit there?”

“Just as I expected!!”

At that moment, Lee Hye-rin, who had been clapping along with the staff, suddenly raised her arm high.

“I’ve prepared the data!”

Sure enough, the team knew my preferences very well.

They knew I couldn’t stand seeing money just pile up without being used.

“It’s a list of assets where we can park the money safely, like last time.”

As the scale of the amount grew, it was time for us to start thinking like a fund.

Looking at the representative funds of various countries, including our own, you can see the difference in scale.

Just looking at our staff now, everyone is ecstatic over having 15 trillion won and trembling at the thought of how to manage it, but for large funds, 15 trillion won is a trivial amount.

The money they manage usually exceeds at least 100 trillion won.

Even just the Kangseong Fund has already gathered hundreds of trillions of won, and before long, it will likely surpass 1,000 trillion won.

Of course, that money all belongs to their clients, and it’s not concentrated in a single fund, but even so, there’s a kind of power that comes with the sheer size.

And the places where they typically put their money are safe assets.

There are funds that pursue high risk and high return, but in fact, there are far more that pursue stability.

That’s why a fund-oriented mindset is necessary.

You start by parking the money in safe assets.

“……”

So I carefully reviewed the list of assets, but something felt off.

Normally, by the time I flipped through this many pages, at least one or two items should have triggered my intuition by now.

But there was nothing.

No flickering lights, no tingling like a taser shock.

There was no feeling at all.

“Do you have any other materials?”

“Ah, these are compiled from recent issues. There’s been a lot going on here and there, but most markets have been relatively calm. Among them, the one drawing the most attention right now is probably this.”

The protagonist of the report shown by Lee Hye-rin was none other than the king of Europe, the dark history of the world, Britain.

“As you know, Brexit was passed in a national referendum two years ago, right? Back then, everyone thought the UK would leave the EU right away, but they’re still in it.”

People weren’t paying much attention because of the protests in France, but in fact, the most absurd case was Britain.

It had been a long time since they decided on Brexit through a vote, and yet things were still dragging on.

After the Prime Minister who announced his resignation post-Brexit, Theresa March became the new Prime Minister of the UK as the second female Prime Minister in British history, and it was expected she would wrap up Brexit smoothly.

But there was still no progress in negotiations.

That’s why the UK was in even greater chaos than France, in a different sense.

“Since it's been dragging on for so long, even the market has reached a point where it barely reacts anymore…”

At the beginning of Brexit, the UK market was heavily shaken.

But as two years passed, the market stabilized.

With the possibility of Brexit being withdrawn becoming very high, it reached a stage where there was barely any response.

“……”

So I received the report handed to me by Hye-rin without thinking much of it.

This market also wasn’t particularly volatile at the moment, so even if I looked over the report, I didn’t expect to feel any.

“!?”

But that turned out to be my mistake.

The moment I received the report from Hye-rin, my previously quiet intuition rang loudly in my head, and a powerful shiver surged from my fingertips through my entire body.

And in my eyes, a vivid scene unfolded.

It was the sight of British people, finally freed from the EU, waving flags in joy.

***

“Then does that mean we won’t suffer any more losses?”

“Yes, Chairman-nim. The French government has completely backed down. Since they’ve scrapped the policies, they won’t be imposing the semiconductor-related taxes either.”

Kang Sung-ho let out a sigh of relief.

They had already invested heavily in Europe, and with France pushing through the digital tax bill causing chaos, the whole of Europe was on the verge of raising taxes, he had nearly seen the funds multiply and fly out the door.

“The world really has changed a lot. Who would’ve thought the riots would grow that big in such a short time?”

“That’s why people say the thing that changed the world after smartphones is SNS. If Kwangwoon hadn’t used PicPic to lead public opinion and collaborated with FaceWeb and other media companies, the policy would have never been withdrawn.”

A sense of relief came over him, but at the same time, a chill ran down his spine.

In the past, he thought Jung Jin-ho was investing too much time and money into SNS.

He had believed it would be better to invest more into semiconductors, the current and future core industry.

But through this incident, Jung Jin-ho had proven exactly why he put so much effort into SNS.

Wasn’t it that France had been completely shaken by the SNS platform PicPic?

It was a stark display of how terrifying media power could be.

How people could be agitated and what kinds of outcomes it could produce.

It had shown the overwhelming power of media.

And that became an enormous weapon for Kwangwoon.

‘Is it that simply making money isn’t enough to hold power?’

Just being in a high position no longer meant you could wield power at will.

It was now about who could move the hearts of the masses.

That was true power.

“And Chairman-nim, I heard that Kwangwoon just established a foundation.”

“Hm? A foundation? You mean for donations?”

“Yes. With the launch of the foundation, they’re donating a whopping 200 billion won to France.”

“Two hundred billion? What on earth would require that much…”

But there was a clear reason behind it.

“They’re planting their flag. Didn’t I report to you last time that a certain force had poured nearly 10 trillion won from Korea into the French stock market to take massive short positions?”

“Yes. And are you saying that was really Kwangwoon?”

“Yes. There’s still no definitive proof that it was Kwangwoon, but that’s what the circulating rumors say. Since the French stock market took a considerable hit due to the protests, they must have earned at least in the trillion-won range, even if not more. So this is probably just a small drop thrown in as a ‘fee’.”

So, it was like a strong man showing mercy to the weak, something along those lines.

But to the other side, it would feel like mockery.

Kwangwoon had stirred up large-scale protests in France, secretly injected 10 trillion won, wrecked the market, and walked away with the spoils.

And then, as if doing a good deed, they tossed 200 billion won their way.

Here, take this and cool off.

There was probably nothing more humiliating for the other side.

The funny thing was, even if they were angry, there was no way to retaliate.

“CEO Jung... he’s more vengeful than I thought.”

“If that policy had passed, it would’ve dealt a huge blow to Kwangwoon. So this was proper payback.”

They dared to touch his territory, and he had delivered a clear punishment.

Indeed, behind that gentle face lived the scariest beast in the world.

It gave him chills sometimes.

There was no better and more comfortable younger brother when drinking and hanging out, but still.

“By the way, Chairman-nim. The direction of this Kwangwoon Foundation seems a little unusual.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Although they donated to France this time, it looks like they plan to spend most of the funds on gifted individuals here at home. Across all fields, no less.”

“All fields?”

“Yes. Literally all fields.”

At that, Kang Sung-ho blinked for a moment.

Why had the Kwangwoon Foundation been created?

At first, he thought it was a temporary setup because the donation to France was such a large amount.

But that was just an excuse.

“There’s another purpose, then?”

“It’s clear. If I may speak frankly... didn’t our Kangseong also establish a foundation long ago to gradually prepare for the company’s future?”

It was already widely known that many who became judges and prosecutors had received scholarships from the Kangseong Foundation.

Kangseong had denied doing it with that purpose in mind, but it was undeniable that they had benefited greatly through those individuals.

But Kwangwoon was going a step further.

They were using their overflowing wealth to sow it across all fields, raising future knights who would protect Kwangwoon.

Kangseong had focused as much money as possible into the legal field, while Kwangwoon was trying to spread influence in every direction.

As shown in this recent case, the world had changed.

“Kwangwoon intends to dominate all fields?”

“Yes. It may not show results right away, but if they keep pouring money in like this and nurturing young talents…”

“You won’t be able to stop them later, even if you want to.”

“Yes. Still, one fortunate point is that by not concentrating on a single field and spreading funds across all of them, the efficiency drops. You don’t know where something will pop up. There’s also a high possibility it’ll just end up wasting money.”

Wasting money.

No. That’s something only someone who doesn’t know Jung Jin-ho would say.

The Jung Jin-ho that Kang Sung-ho knew was not someone who would waste even a single won.

There was a reason behind setting up the foundation suddenly while putting on a show of sending 200 billion won to France.

Especially the part about handing out scholarships without limiting it to specific fields, it meant he had confidence in raising the talented core personnel of the future.

When it came to investment, there was probably no one with better intuition than Jung Jin-ho.

‘Then in the near future, Kwangwoon’s people will be embedded everywhere.’

The problem was that there was no way to stop Kwangwoon’s runaway momentum.

Even the French government had knelt before Kwangwoon, so how could Kangseong possibly stop them?

Just like with wealth, the same goes for power.

Once it gains acceleration, its force grows uncontrollably.

Kwangwoon, which would soon dominate Korea, and before long, the entire world.

Maintaining a friendly relationship just as it is now.

That was the only path Kang Sung-ho could take for the future of Kangseong.

*****

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