The next day's secret negotiations took place in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Chen Qing and James Raybould split their forces into two teams. James was responsible for dealing with Hyundai and SK, while Chen Qing only chose Samsung, which was obviously more valued by her boss.
Due to sufficient preparation in advance, a basic agreement was reached in just one day.
Hyundai initially hoped that the Westeros System would help win Kia. James did not hide it and said that he would hand over Kia to Samsung. However, it was also promised that the Westeros system will help Hyundai annex the larger Daewoo Group in the next few years.
Hyundai's Zheng Mengjiu didn't believe it at first, until a series of financial data about Daewoo Group that even Hyundai was unable to dig out was given.
Daewoo Group, the second largest chaebol in South Korea, has total actual liabilities of more than 70 billion U.S. dollars and an asset-liability ratio of 470%. It is in a precarious state that could collapse if the wind blows. In the next few years, the Westeros system is fully capable of creating several hurricanes against Daewoo.
In fact, it is better to kill the chicken to scare the monkey.
The subtext of James' confession is very obvious. The Westeros system knows Daewoo's financial situation well, and the same is true for modern times. If Hyundai doesn't cooperate, this side won't mind creating a few hurricanes for Hyundai in the future.
SK went much smoother.
In addition to handing over half of the equity in the communications industry, one of its two core businesses, the Westeros system basically provides SK with expansion plans, including pushing other chaebols to reduce their involvement in the petrochemical industry, another core business of SK. Siege, and help SK take over Hyundai's electronics business, which may also include Daewoo's semiconductor division in the future.
Chen Qing's side went equally well.
Just a promise from Kia Motors made Li Jianxi make concessions.
This is also the reason why South Korea’s chaebols have limited vision at this stage.
Before the crisis, four of the top ten chaebols in South Korea, Hyundai, Daewoo, SsangYong and Kia, had their core businesses in automobiles. This shows the proportion of the automobile industry in the Korean economy. It is also the reason why Samsung has been desperate to get closer to automobiles in recent years. industrial reasons.
Everyone thinks this is a good project.
In addition, Chen Qing also promised the Samsung Lee family long-term control over the consortium on behalf of her boss. To this end, Chen Qing stated that the stake in Samsung Electronics would be dispersed in multiple shells to ensure that Samsung The group's subsidiaries can still control approximately 20% of Samsung Electronics' shares through various cross-shareholding models, indirectly maintaining their position as the largest shareholder. The proportion of equity belonging to Samsung's Lee family will also remain at around 5%.
As for cars, the Westeros system is completely hands-off.
Lee Kun-hee knows very well that this is the best condition he can get. Losing actual control of Samsung Electronics and gaining a firm foothold in the automobile industry. As for the promise of control, taking it too seriously would be naive. However, Li Jianxi also believes that as long as he can ensure the interests of the Westeros system, Simon Westeros will not rashly deprive the Li family of control of Samsung Electronics. .
Afterwards, the three chaebol bosses were finally able to fly to Los Angeles, meet Simon in person, and everyone signed the draft agreement of intent.
Simon also promised again at the subsequent reception that as long as everyone cooperates happily, in the future, Hyundai, Samsung and SK will be the three giants in South Korea, and the others will only be reduced to the second tier. In fact, the three companies will have a broader place in the world. .
As for how the heads of the three families feel in their hearts, it is unknown.
In addition, you will also wonder, or expect, who is first, who is second, and who is third
Chen Qing did not go to Los Angeles with the three chaebol bosses, but flew to Washington.
The IMF negotiation team that is about to go to South Korea is being formed, and it must include members of the Westeros system. Simon has been laying out this aspect for a long time, and there is no shortage of manpower. Chen Qing does not need to worry about it, but she also needs to get familiar with it in advance so that she can later Maintain good communication during secret operations in South Korea.
…
Seoul, Korea.
In the blink of an eye, it is already Thursday, and November 13th here in Asia is almost Black Friday. However, the mentality of South Korea is similar to that of Black Friday.
Cheong Wa Dae Presidential Palace.
All day today, Kim Young-sam has been presiding over a meeting to determine South Korea's economic future.
The next core issue is whether South Korea has confirmed that it will seek help from the IMF.
Since the news that South Korea's foreign reserves are about to be depleted was revealed on Monday, and the authorities were forced to implement emergency foreign exchange controls and temporarily close the stock and bond markets on Tuesday, both the Korean government and the public, as well as international public opinion, have been criticized. Many domestic media in South Korea are He denounced Kim Young-sam and asked him to voluntarily resign and apologize. The matter of seeking help from the IMF has once again become the focus of intense domestic controversy.
The opposition is dominated by Li Renji, one of the three candidates in this election.
Lee In-je was once a member of the ruling Grand National Party. After losing his bid for the presidential candidate position with Lee Hoi-chang, he announced his solo career and organized the Saenuri Party. Currently, his support rate is second only to Kim Dae-jung and Lee Hoi-chang, with about 20 members. % of voters approve
A support rate of 20% is only half of the top two candidates, and they will definitely not be elected under normal circumstances. So, taking this opportunity, Li Renji suddenly started to take the wrong approach.
Lee In-je's point of view is that since South Korea has implemented foreign exchange controls and closed the stock and bond markets, it should continue, and there is no need to seek assistance from the IMF at the cost of giving up South Korea's economic sovereignty. What South Korea needs to do is to conduct an inventory and reorganization of non-performing enterprises and international debts under government control, and at the same time launch negotiations with creditors to extend the repayment time.
In recent days, Li Renji has been vigorously promoting his views in the public media, winning many echoing voices, and his support rate has jumped to more than 25% in a short period of time.
However, how could things be so simple
Li Renji's attitude, in the final analysis, is still a lie.
It means that I can't afford to pay it back now. You can only give me some more time to sort out my family and pay it back slowly. Even if you want to get back the debt as soon as possible, it is best to give me a discount and pay less.
In order to find support for his position, Lee In-je also vigorously attacked international financial speculators, instilling in the public that it was international financial speculators that caused everything now. Therefore, those overseas capital trapped in South Korea's debt market are themselves responsible for South Korea's current predicament. There is a lot of responsibility.
Frankly speaking, Li Renji's argument is actually correct.
The problem is that this is still not a world of right and wrong.
As the South Korean authorities publicly stated on Tuesday that they would seek help from the IMF, they once again fell into disputes and back-and-forth. Yesterday, Standard & Poor's directly downgraded South Korea's sovereign credit rating from BB+, which has general credit risks, to CCC-, which has very poor credit and may default. It is already considered junk. Bond category.
Not only that, the United States, Japan and the European Union have also expressed close concern about South Korea's subsequent decisions under the implementation of emergency financial controls.
If it is just a short-term financial control, as long as it is restored in time, everyone can understand it.
If South Korea intends to completely cheat and implement long-term controls in order to avoid further collapse of the financial market and is unwilling to pay the price to seek help from the IMF, then various countries will not rule out imposing sanctions on South Korea for seriously disrupting the international financial order.
Just lie down forever.
A conference room at the Blue House.
After fighting with each other for a day, seeing that Li Renji was still unyielding and unwilling to give in, Jin Yongsan almost threw the tea cup in his hand at the opponent's face and performed another full-scale martial arts show.
In fact, Cheong Wa Dae has every right to get rid of Ri In-je and directly contact the IMF.
The problem is, the IMF doesn't want to.
South Korea is about to hold a general election. In order to ensure that the agreement reached between the IMF and South Korea is effective, Washington's requirement is that the next agreement must be signed by South Korea's current president Kim Young-sam and the three presidential candidates with the highest support. Even if Li Renji's approval rating is very low, as it has been recently, who knows whether there will be a black swan event in the future.
If Li Renji is elected and the new president refuses to acknowledge his debt, the IMF's tens of billions of dollars in loans may be put at uncontrollable risk.
Seeing that another day was about to pass, Jin Yongsan knew that he had no time to delay, so he did not announce the adjournment of the meeting, allowing the sun to set and the lights to light up in the conference room.
Of course there was no dinner.
The opposition headed by Li Renji also put on a show of resolute resistance.
So at seven o'clock in the evening, Cheong Wa Dae General Affairs Secretary Jiang Xuanhao finally sent a few documents and whispered something in Jin Yongsan's ear. Jin Yongsan nodded and drove all other irrelevant people out of the conference room, leaving only himself and the three. As a presidential candidate, he pushed the information in his hand to Li Renji: "Read it for yourself, Renji. No matter what decision you make after reading these materials, tonight, I will invite the IMF to officially come to South Korea."
Li Renji didn't look at Jin Yongsan. He paused and opened the first document in front of him.
This is the balance sheet data of the top 10 banks in South Korea.
In order for Li Renji to understand it, it was obviously simplified and made clear at a glance.
Li Renji flipped through the data in front of him page by page. He only read half of it and stopped turning. He looked at Jin Yongsan in disbelief: "Impossible, this is impossible, it must be fake."
Among the information in front of him, there were only five or six companies that Li Renji had seen. The lowest bad debt ratio was 79%, and the highest was even 263%.
Lee In-je recently insisted that the premise for refusing to seek assistance from the IMF is that South Korea still has enough financial resources to carry out internal rectification. However, the shocking bad debt ratios of the top ten banks were indeed something he had not thought of at all. The lowest was already 79%, and the highest...
wrong!
Li Renji quickly took out a page and showed it to Jin Yongsan: "Do you think I am a fool? Seoul Bank has a bad debt ratio of 263%. How is this possible? How can it exceed 100%?"
Upon hearing this, Jin Dazhong on the other side also looked at Jin Yongsan curiously.
Everyone wants to persuade this stubborn donkey to turn around. If we lie to him with false data, it will only make things worse.
Kim Dae-jung also doesn’t know much about finance.
Jin Yongsan explained with a cold face: "Won't you take a closer look? What's left is foreign debt."
At this point, Jin Yongsan was also angry, and then added: "Those fools used short-term financing obtained from abroad that did not belong to their own capital as long-term loans to companies. Now so many companies are bankrupt and many more are in trouble. Of course the money cannot be recovered. Moreover, this is just the beginning. If the national economy is not rescued as soon as possible, the situation will continue to deteriorate. We may not be able to save even half of the top 10 domestic banks in your hands. Therefore, we simply cannot There is no capital left that can be used to rectify the national economy as you imagined, so we can only seek help from the outside."
South Korea's external debt exceeds US$200 billion, but in fact, the overall debt scale, including domestic debt and overseas debt, totals more than US$500 billion based on the pre-crisis exchange rate of 800 won to 1 US dollar.
More than 90% of these debts were issued by South Korea's top 10 banks, and the domestic part can be described as the wealth accumulated by South Korea over decades.
Now, just because the Korean won has depreciated, the assets of Korean banks worth up to 300 billion US dollars have shrunk by more than half. Next, it is conceivable that as Korean companies begin large-scale bankruptcies, rectifications, and reorganizations, it is difficult to say that this huge amount of assets will be restored in the future. How much will be left after all the fuss
In the financial crisis, the vitality of all countries was severely damaged. In fact, this is basically the case.
Currencies depreciate, debts evaporate, and stock markets plummet... ultimately causing a country's decades of accumulated wealth to vanish.
In short, South Korea's only way out at this time is to seek external assistance.
It is certainly not impossible to stay in isolation and try to survive, but this is not a way out at all, it is a dead end. Because Western countries, including the United States, have stated that if South Korea dares to take the lead in seriously disrupting the international financial order, it will never be able to turn around again.
After listening to Jin Yongsan's explanation, Li Renji took back the page of information without saying a word, put aside the balance sheet document about the Bank of Korea, and looked at a folder below.
This sight made him almost jump up again.
Inside the folder was a thick stack of handwritten letters.
Simply put, it is a threat.
A core member of Li Renji's New Kuomintang expressed their position through a letter that if he disregards the interests of the people for the sake of party struggle, everyone will mobilize together to expel him from the New Kuomintang.
Subsequently, there were handwritten letters from the heads of various chaebols, to the same effect. If Li Renji did not cooperate with this IMF bailout negotiation, then he would not be able to get even a penny of political donations from the chaebols in the future.
After reading this, Li Renji knew that he was doomed.
The key reason why Lee In-ji dares to compete with the current president and the other two candidates is that, in addition to the support of the people, he believes that there will be a group of people in South Korea's political and business circles on his side. As long as he can win over enough chips, this will In the second presidential election, he does have a chance to make a comeback.
In political circles, he did find supporters.
However, on the chaebol side, he found that he underestimated the perseverance of those guys. In these letters in hand, all the heads of the top ten chaebols have expressed their opinions.
Under this situation, if he remains stubborn, Li Renji understands that his political future will be completely ended.
After a moment of silence, Li Renji finally said: "I can sign, but I need to get some guarantees."
Jin Yongsan, who had been delayed by Li Renji for three whole days, saw that the other party had softened. He knew in his heart that he should calm down and avoid another setback, but he still couldn't hold it back and said with some ridicule: "We can give you a guarantee, but, do you think you Can it be honored?"
Sure enough, Jin Yongsan's words once again made Li Renji feel a little embarrassed. Instead of taking back what he just said, he stood up suddenly and walked straight to the door of the conference room.
After opening the door and stepping out of the conference room with one foot, Li Renji turned his head again, slowly swept across the remaining three people at the large conference table, and said with sadness and anger: "We actually all understand that we are about to betray our country, we... They are all sinners of the Republic of Korea."