Hannam-dong, Seoul.
Warm sunlight streamed in through the large floor-to-ceiling windows, brightly lighting up the spacious living room, where Madam Jo Deok-rye was sitting alone on a European-made sofa, wearing glasses and reading a novel in the original French.
It was not something she usually needed, but since she had graduated from the Department of French Language and Literature, her skills were good enough that she could read the original text without any trouble.
Ding-dong. Ding-dong.
When the doorbell rang outside, the housekeeper from Gunsan, who was wearing an apron, came out of the kitchen and hurried over to the front door with quick steps.
[tl/n - Gunsan is a city in North Jeolla Province, South Korea.]
"Who is it?"
The housekeeper from Gunsan, who had asked while pressing the intercom button, soon spoke in a delighted voice.
"Oh my! It's been such a long time."
She immediately opened the door, and Madam Jo Deok-rye, who had been holding a book, looked up and asked,
"Who is it?"
"The young master has come."
"Oh my! You mean our Seok-won is here?"
Just as Madam Jo Deok-rye, beaming, set her book down, the front door opened and Seok-won, wearing a thin cashmere coat, came into the main house together with Manager Han Ji-seong.
"Welcome, young master."
"You've been well too, Auntie."
Seok-won replied with a smile as he received the housekeeper's warm welcome.
He soon took off his shoes and went inside, then lightly hugged Madam Jo Deok-rye as she approached with her arms open.
"Have you been well?"
"Yes. This time, your business trip was quite long."
"It just turned out that way."
"That can happen when you're running a business. Have you had lunch?"
"No. I came straight here so I could eat with you, since it's been a while."
At Seok-won's words, Madam Jo Deok-rye broke into a happy smile.
"I'm in the middle of preparing it anyway, so go greet your father first."
"Yes."
Seok-won took off his coat and handed it to Manager Han Ji-seong standing behind him, then asked,
"Father is in his study, right?"
"Yes."
With familiar steps, Seok-won headed to the study in the back, gave a light knock, and then opened the solid wooden door and went in.
"I'm here."
In the study, Chairman Park Tae-hong happened to be gently wiping dust off an orchid leaf from base to tip with a microfiber cloth lightly dampened with water.
He had said recently that he had taken up orchid growing as a hobby, and the way he was carefully tending to it looked quite natural.
"I heard you arrived two days ago. You're coming quite late."
With a grin, Seok-won replied to his father's grumpy expression.
"I wanted to come right away, but I got delayed taking care of some backlogged work."
"Hmph. Excuses. You weren't like this before. You seem to be getting more and more slick as time goes on."
"Isn't that something I learned from you, Father?"
"What did you say?"
Chairman Park Tae-hong glared at his second son, then soon clicked his tongue and set down the cloth he was holding.
"Don't just stand there blankly. Sit."
"Yes."
Seok-won casually unbuttoned his jacket and sat down on the sofa to the right, and Chairman Park Tae-hong also came over and took the central seat of honor.
Crossing one leg over the other, Chairman Park Tae-hong gave his second son a sideways look and spoke curtly.
"Looks like you did fine in the United States."
"Come on. Do you know how busy I was? Just look at these dark circles."
"You look perfectly healthy and rosy. What dark circles are you talking about?"
Even so, hearing his son's exaggerated complaints, Chairman Park Tae-hong found his mood easing and leaned back against the sofa as he asked,
"I hear that you made a huge profit by shorting Enron, which went bankrupt recently."
"I did pretty well with it."
At his second son's casual, shrugging reply, Chairman Park Tae-hong let out an incredulous chuckle to himself.
He had heard from Chief Secretary Gil Seong-ho that Seok-won had made an enormous sum, on the order of tens of billions of dollars, from Enron short-selling in a single investment, which made it all the more unbelievable.
'Huh. He earns, in one shot, not even net profit but the equivalent of the group's ten years of sales, and he's still that calm. That nerve of his really is something he was born with.'
After all, even if he had noticed that something was off with the accounting, it took incredible guts to boldly place a short bet against a company with a market value of hundreds of billions of dollars.
'When you look at him like that, he really does take after me perfectly.'
If his wife, Madam Jo Deok-rye, heard that, she would insist he took after her side of the family, but no matter how you looked at it, Seok-won really did resemble him.
Chairman Park Tae-hong found the corners of his mouth lifting into a grin before he caught himself and straightened his expression.
"I hear Director Seo is very pleased with the returns."
Seeing his father subtly praising him, Seok-won smiled to himself and deliberately said in a casual tone, as if it were nothing.
"Maybe in a few months, the first digit of the return will change."
"What? What do you mean by that?"
Chairman Park Tae-hong asked as he suddenly straightened his posture.
"I'm in the middle of a new investment."
"You've already started something else?"
Looking at his flustered father, Seok-won nodded calmly.
"Yes."
"You're not planning to do something like short-selling again, like last time, are you?"
Chairman Park Tae-hong's thought that his son wouldn't possibly do something like that again right after making such a high-risk investment was completely shattered by Seok-won.
"How did you know?"
Unlike Seok-won, who said it with a grin, Chairman Park Tae-hong asked back with a hardened expression.
"Are you saying you really placed another short bet?"
"That's right."
Chairman Park Tae-hong was so dumbfounded he was practically left speechless.
"Is your heart made of steel or something? No, more importantly, how much money did you put in this time?"
"I didn't go in big like last time. I just made a moderate bet."
"Hoo… Is that so."
Seeing his father let out a sigh of relief, Seok-won suddenly dropped the next line.
"I'm thinking of taking a position of about 50 billion dollars, just lightly."
At that moment, Chairman Park Tae-hong's body froze stiff.
"F… fifty billion dollars?"
"Yes. Less than half of it will be in short positions, and the rest will all be used to buy index put options. So the actual capital going in won't be that large."
Chairman Park Tae-hong looked at his second son with a dumbfounded expression.
"Either way, if you're wrong, you're still losing a huge amount of money!"
"That's true."
Even though he had put up a stake far larger than the entire market capitalization of the Daehung Group, he did not show even the slightest hint of tension, which made Chairman Park Tae-hong look utterly incredulous.
"What are you going to do if your prediction is wrong?"
"Who do you think I am? Do you really think I'd make such a reckless bet if the odds were low?"
The words "Isn't that exactly what you're doing?" rose to his throat, but when he thought about all the things Seok-won had shown so far, he could not bring himself to argue and could only let out a groan.
"Grr…"
Whether he knew how worried his father was or not, Seok-won spoke with complete confidence.
"Once next year comes around, the returns will have grown enormously again, so you can look forward to it."
"Haa…"
With the Federal Reserve and central banks around the world competitively cutting interest rates, and the U.S. government planning massive economic stimulus measures worth over 100 billion dollars, betting a huge sum on the stock market falling seemed, no matter how you thought about it, like an utterly unreasonable move.
But since it was Seok-won, who had shown astonishing investment skills time and again, that worry was mixed with a faint sense of expectation that maybe, just maybe, he would pull it off again this time.
His head a mess of complicated thoughts, Chairman Park Tae-hong soon shook his head back and forth and raised both hands in surrender.
"I don't know. You understand investing better than I do, so you'll handle it as you see fit."
"When have I ever let you down?"
At his casual tone, Chairman Park Tae-hong put on a serious expression and offered some advice.
"They say even monkeys fall from trees. You never know what kind of variables might come up in this world. Don't charge in recklessly. Always be cautious."
"Yes. I'll keep that in mind."
He was still worried that his son was making an overly risky investment, but since it did not look like Seok-won had become blinded by arrogance after his string of successes, Chairman Park Tae-hong could at least put his mind at ease a little.
"By the way. I also brought you a gift."
"Did you bring another nice bottle of liquor like last time?"
"It's something even better than that."
"Oh? What is it? Hurry and take it out."
Chairman Park Tae-hong's eyes gleamed with anticipation.
"The Midopa Department Store in Gangnam still doesn't have an Hermes boutique yet, right?"
At Seok-won's question, Chairman Park Tae-hong smacked his lips and gave a small nod.
"That's right. Unfortunately, they still haven't moved in."
Although it aimed to be the country's top luxury department store, unfortunately, the Midopa Department Store's Gangnam branch only had Louis Vuitton and Chanel among the so-called three great luxury brands, with Hermès missing.
What made it even more painful was the fact that not just the Gangnam branch, but not a single Midopa Department Store location had a Hermès boutique.
Since Hermès was the most prestigious name even among the three great luxury brands, that made the absence all the more regrettable.
"I've been trying to get them to move in for a long time, but they flat-out refused, saying that for brand management reasons they don't open more than a certain number of stores in the same city. Arrogant bunch, aren't they?"
Chairman Park Tae-hong grumbled with a dissatisfied expression.
In fact, it had already been four years since Hermès entered Korea by opening its first store, but the number of its boutiques was still so small you could count them on one hand.
In general, top-tier luxury brands were known for not opening stores carelessly and for having strict conditions, but Hermès was particularly extreme and conservative even among them.
"Then why are you suddenly bringing up Hermès?"
"They say they'll open a store in the Gangnam branch if we give them the largest space in the very front on the first floor. Would you be willing to accept that?"
"?"
After a brief moment of confusion, Chairman Park Tae-hong hurriedly straightened his posture.
"What did you just say? Hermès is coming into our department store?"
Seeing the reaction he had expected, Seok-won smiled and nodded.
"Yes. Of course, on the condition that we meet the demands they've set."
"Of course we should meet them! We've always felt like something was missing because Hermès, the most prestigious name among Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and Hermès, wasn't here. If we can fill that gap, why wouldn't we do whatever it takes!"
Chairman Park Tae-hong poured out his words with an excited expression.
"If we change the store layout, the brands that are already there might complain. Will that be okay?"
"I'll take care of things like that myself, so you don't need to worry about it!"
Chairman Park Tae-hong spoke as if it were no big deal and showed an eager attitude toward bringing Hermès in.
"Then I'll talk to Hermès and tell them to work out the practical details with Midopa Department Store."
"Mm. Good."
As he nodded, Chairman Park Tae-hong put on a curious expression.
"But how on earth did you manage to pull off something that Midopa Department Store couldn't accomplish no matter how hard they tried?"
"While I was staying in New York this time, I attended several events, and I happened to meet the chairman of Hermès and got a chance to get to know him. I remembered that Midopa Department Store didn't have a Hermès boutique, so I asked him about it, and he agreed right away."
At that, Chairman Park Tae-hong's eyes widened.
"You met the chairman of Hermès in person and talked with him?"
"Yes."
Seeing him speak so casually, as if calling the chairman of Hermès were no different from talking about a neighbor next door, Chairman Park Tae-hong let out an involuntary chuckle.
It felt a bit hollow that something Midopa Department Store had failed to accomplish despite years of effort was resolved in a single conversation, but at the same time, realizing just how much standing Seok-won now had in the United States made a deep sense of pride well up in his chest.