Story of a Big Player from Gangnam

“Of course not. Please do so.”

Once the waiter took empty plates from the table, Gun-Ho asked Young-Eun,

“Why don’t we take a walk? It will aid digestion.”

“I have to go back to the hospital. Since this restaurant is close to where I work, I might run across my colleagues on the street.”

“What about having a glass of beer?”

“Can we just stay here until we part?”

Young-Eun looked at her watch.

Gun-Ho wanted to spend more time with her, but she seemed to want to call it a night. Gun-Ho didn’t want to lose his chance to get closer to her.

Gun-Ho wondered. ‘Does she not like me?’

“Let’s at least have a cup of coffee before we call it a night.”

Gun-Ho quickly brought two cups of coffee from a vending machine inside the restaurant before Young-Eun could say no. While having a cup of coffee, Young-Eun asked Gun-Ho, “I heard you went to college in China.”

“That’s right. I went to Zhejiang University.”

“Did you study the Chinese language there?”

“No, I majored in Economics.”

“You must be fluent in Chinese.”

“I can converse in Chinese.”

Silence filled the air. This time, Gun-Ho broke the silence by asking Young-Eun, “How do you spend your Sundays? Do you go to church by any chance?”

“I usually do my laundry, and sometimes I take a walk too.”

“You take a walk? Where do you usually take a walk?”

“My usual place is the Fortress Wall of Seoul.”

Gun-Ho asked her again while having his cup of coffee, “Which path do you take to get there?”

“When I go there by myself, I take the road from the Hyehwa four-way intersection. With friends, I get off from the next subway station at Hansung University Station.”

“Hansung University Station?”

“Yes, we pass the Starbucks and take the street behind Gyeongsin High School.”

“I see. I like walking around Fortress Wall of Seoul as well.”

Gun-Ho lied without realizing what he was saying. His hobby was taking a nap, not taking a walk.

When Gun-Ho almost finished his coffee, he took out his business card.

“This is my business card.”

Young-Eun Kim closely looked at Gun-Ho’s business card. It listed three different companies: GH Development, GH Mobile, and Dyeon Korea. Gun-Ho was the president of all three companies.

Gun-Ho then handed a pen and a piece of paper to Young-Eun, and he said, “Let me have your phone number since I gave my business card to you. I’d like to contact you if I have a question about my mother’s condition.”

Young-Eun hesitated a bit before giving her phone number to Gun-Ho. Since now, Gun-Ho had her number and he felt like the relationship was going forward. Young-Eun stood up from her seat once she finished her coffee, and said, “Let’s go.”

“Thank you for having dinner with me. I’m afraid that I might take too much of your time today. I hope I could have a chance to join you in taking a walk around Fortress Wall of Seoul someday.”

Gun-Ho and Young-Eun walked out of the restaurant after Gun-Ho paid for the dinner at the counter.

“Thank you for the dinner. Well, bye.”

Young-Eun gave a slight nod to Gun-Ho with a faint smile. Gun-Ho gave a firm nod to Young-Eun showing his respect.

“Good night. I will give you a call.”

Young-Eun turned around and walked off in the direction of Hyehwa Town.

Gun-Ho walked to the parking lot where Chan-Ho would be waiting for him in his Bentley. Chan-Ho was listening to the music in the car.

“Huh? You came earlier than I expected, sir.”

“You ate, right?”

“Yes, I did. Sir, you seem to be feeling pleasant.”

“What are you talking about? Let’s go to my pleasant home!”

Gun-Ho felt good on the way home. He felt like everything would go very well.

It was the day when Gun-Ho was supposed to receive the third quarterly report of GH Mobile on its profit and loss.

All of the GH Mobile’s executive officers gathered in Gun-Ho’s office.

The internal auditor distributed relevant documents to the meeting attendees before he began to give the verbal report. Jong-Suk started fiddling with his cup of water in front of him. He must have felt bored when the internal auditor started talking with too many numbers.

Gun-Ho, who was looking at Jong-Suk, said, “Director Jong-Suk Park, please pay attention.”

“Huh? Oh, yes, sir. Of course.”

Director Jong-Suk Park sat straight and tried to focus on hearing the internal auditor’s report. When other people were present at work, Director Jong-Suk Park couldn’t talk to Gun-Ho in an informal way. He couldn’t even call him brother either.

After the meeting ended, everyone left the office except President Jang-Hwan Song.

After making sure that everyone was out, President Song started speaking while having a bottle of water, “Sir, when you acquired this company, you invested 2 billion won. And you added an additional 3 billion won later.”

“That’s correct.”

“As the internal auditor presented during the meeting, our debt has been reduced from 70 billion won to 60 billion won.”

“I heard that.”

“The paid-in capital of this company is 2.5 billion won. Mulpasaneop was left with 500 million won after its reduction of capital, and you added 2 billion to it when you acquired the company. That made its current paid-in capital 2.5 billion won.”

“That’s correct.”

“The president of Mulpasaneop left the company after collecting his shares of 500 million won and his investment fund of 1.5 billion won, a total of 2 billion won.”

“That’s right.”

“You then put your 3 billion won into this company in order to pay off bad and urgent debts. This fund of 3 billion won which was deposited from you as the president of this company is listed under the liability account. That’s why even though we paid off some of our outstanding balance to our vendors, our debt doesn’t appear to be reduced.”

“Hmm.”

“Our company doesn’t have much earned surplus yet. Accordingly, if we divide the total liabilities by the sum of the paid-capital and the earned surplus in order to calculate our debt ratio, we come up with more than 400%.”

“Hmm.”

“We will have to make more effort to reduce the debt ratio.”

“So, you are suggesting that I capitalize on the 3 billion won that I previously put into this company in order to reduce our debt ratio.”

“I’m sorry, sir. It’s not something I can suggest or ask you to do so since it’s your call as an investor to this company. I’m just telling you the current status of this company’s financial situation.”

“Hmm.”

“You could take your dividend at the end of each year along with your investment fund of 30 billion won. The company will still survive. However, it will prolong the preparation time to have this company go public.”

“Hmm.”

“The reason I’m telling you this now is that we failed to get a work from L Group yesterday. They determined that our company has financial stability issues because our debt ratio is way too high. I just want you to consider this current situation.”

“What is the average debt ratio in the industry?”

“It’s 160%.”

“Hmm. They require a company to keep its debt ratio 1.5 times lower than the industrial average debt ratio in order to successfully register with KOSDAQ, don’t they?”

“That’s correct.”