12 Hours After

Translator: Khan

Editor: Aelryinth

“Hoo-hoo…” I heaved a sigh and lifted my head up. Above the sky, an airplane flew away. I looked at it and asked Secretary Lee beside me. “So, how many minutes are left?”

“We have forty-five minutes to get on board.”

“… forty-five minutes.” Even though I had been tight-scheduled, I had forty-five minutes left. I recounted the time and said, “Secretary Park.”

“Yes, boss.”

“My first task for next year is to buy a private plane. Get me started on the purchase as soon as I get home.”

“Yes, sir.”

‘I’ve increasingly grown to dislike waiting these days. To be exact, I have come to hate wasting time. For forty-five minutes now waiting for the plane, the world will be on the verge of collapse. If I buy a private plane, the problem will be solved. If I think about it, I should have bought one earlier.’

Because of the nature of my work, I couldn’t think of buying a plane even though I had become the richest person in Korea; all my work had been done with a few clicks in the office and a few meetings with directors. It had been only the last few months that I had been abroad frequently.

Once again, another plane passed over the sky.

I lowered my head and looked ahead. White, yellow, black… people of various races came and went. This was the John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.

Yesterday, I’d had dinner with Senator William Turner, brother of Maverick Turner, and talked about this and that. It was based on SHH Group’s increased investment in the U.S.. Senator William Turner was very pleased to have me as his supporter: he would promote it like this, “I brought in an investor from Korea who will create jobs.” In any case, a politician was always hungry for money, whether in the U.S. or Korea.

I lifted my cell phone. It was seven p.m. on December thirty-first, in U.S. time. I mumbled in the middle of watching it, “Korea must have already had a bright new year, 2024. Time flies so fast.”

Secretary Park answered quietly, “That’s right.”

While I was working around the world like that, the year changed to 2024. Doomsday was two years away. However, nothing had changed. News was still going out until February 2026. Crow worked hard, but he didn’t find any clues to the nuclear war. If it was after the nuclear war, he could bring something, but for now, he brought only the present facts.

‘What if I release the classified information Crow brought? What would be the aftermath? The U.S. and China would not sit still. When dealing with Korean chaebols, I was able to spread information secretly, but I would not be able to reveal military secrets and deceive the eyes of U.S. and Chinese special agents… Then maybe I could raise a political issue. However, it would be better than a nuclear war… this should be considered one of the last methods.

‘I’ll go as planned. I need to increase my influence by investing the remaining money in the U.S. and China for the next two years, even if I’m shopping for companies on both sides.’

Even SHH Group had a large base in its global market, but its business sectors were fixed, and it was limited in its ability to expand. In order to penetrate the US and Chinese markets, it was necessary to invest directly: that is, to go there with money and buy a local company. But to do that, one thing must be done first, and that was the IPO of Invictus Investment; in a word, to list Invictus Investment on the KOSPI. Currently, Invictus Investment had one big problem in acquiring U.S. and Chinese companies. It was not a money problem, but the future news!

According to the rules, the future news only recognized the value of the company’s shares listed in the Korean market. No matter how many foreign companies I had bought, the future news had not given them credit for raising my grade. I spent money, but my grade didn’t go up. It was a big problem for me. But there was a way to resolve the problem at once; it was the listing of Invictus Investment.

After that, if Invictus Investment bought foreign companies, their value would be reflected in the stock price of Invictus Investment, which was listed in the KOSPI, and it would allow me to acquire foreign companies and raise my grade at the same time. To be exact, as soon as it went public, my grade would go up. Currently, our company had more than forty-five billion dollars in cash alone and its equity value was over ten billion dollars. So, the pure cash assets and stock value exceeded fifty-five billion dollars. Furthermore, if we included SHH Electronics and SHH Construction, which were worth more than thirty billion dollars each, it exceeded a hundred billion dollars!

‘As soon as Invictus Investment go public, I will have that ‘Exxxxx’ Class. Then the foreign companies that we take over will become the ones that support it.’

———————

Shortly after returning to Korea, I called up Vice President Jang and the board members. I sat down at the top seat, with Vice President Jang next to me, and said to the board members, “I’m sure everyone knows today’s agenda.”

As I said that, I looked at the document in front of me. Right there was a document titled ‘Discussion on the listing of Invictus Investment to the KOSPI.’ In fact, this kind of story used to come out in the media regularly ever since it was revealed that I had become the richest person in Korea.

[Korea’s richest man, CEO Han Sang-hoon, when will your company be open?]

[Love calls continue for to CEO Han Sang-hoon.]

[Investors with a bundle of money waiting for CEO Han Sang-hoon.]

I had a 100% stake in Invictus Investment and had enhanced the value to ten times, twenty times, fifty times, a hundred times, and four hundred times. People who were jealous of the value were grumbling. In fact, I had wanted to keep Invictus Investment private and receive indirect investments, and in that way, I would have raised the stock prices of the companies I had bought.

Over time, however, other institutions and individual investors had found that they were just side dishes, since Kai Games and Hyun Young Pharmaceutical had lost their stock values since I had sold them. In the end, as time went on, the only place where the money poured in was Invictus Investment. Of course that was what I had intended for a long time. The key to it all was my monopoly!

“Now, I’d like to have our company listed, and grow it into the largest company in the country. Does anyone have any objections to this?”

As I spoke, a director raised his hand and said, “Mr. CEO, by the way… Why are you suddenly trying to make an IPO? Our company is now in full cash and profitable right now.”

That was a very good question. Actually, I didn’t want to do the IPO, either. I also wanted to monopolize the profits of our company. But it was necessary to raise my grade within two years. If I hadn’t seen the future, this IPO would not have been planned at all. I put forth a rather compelling reason, “I felt that funding was necessary for the planned investments, and there is a strong public opinion that wants an IPO…”

Saying that, I felt a little guilty, because it was a total lie. Even if the first reason was so, the second reason was even more so. I was a public opinion maker, not a public opinion listener. But nevertheless, since I said so, no one interrupted me.

Everyone seemed to accept it, thinking, ‘If the CEO says like that…’ Of course, one or two of them probably had in mind, ‘It’s weird to think so…’ However, in the end, they would also agree with me, thinking, ‘Everything the CEO does has a big meaning.’ They’d been watching my winning streak for years, just like Vice President Jang. During the financial crisis in China in the previous year, it was even stranger that the short sale was preemptive.

One of the directors asked, “Then, how much do you want to make public?”

“I’m not going to do that much, only ten percent of the current stake. I will keep holding ninety of it.”

In the first place, the IPO was a necessary procedure to break through the rules of the future news. I would not tolerate anyone buying a stake in our company and interfering in internal affairs, so only ten percent would be released to the market. Anyone who managed to buy our company’s shares would have great luck.

Once upon a time, a dentist living in Omaha, Nebraska in the U.S. invested several thousand dollars in a neighbor’s investment company, and earned millions of dollars, because the neighbor was Warren Buffett, and the investment company was his company, Berkshire Hathaway. Like that dentist, anyone in Korea would be able to make profits up to ten to a hundred times easily if they bought our company… on the condition that our company existed two years from now.

“Then I will know all of you decided to do that… Do you have any other problems?”

“I’m sure everything will be okay. Our finances are so transparent… If I make a prediction, I am sure there will be a huge crowd.”

A director raised his hand and said, “There won’t be any trouble with the FSS. The government workers say that this administration is strangely positive about our company.”

‘I know.’ I laughed and said, thinking along, “We pay a lot of taxes and they like us. Let’s try to get the IPO done as soon as possible.”

———————

Our company immediately started to work in advance for the IPO. Vice President Jang had a lot of experience in the IPO sector, so he led the way smoothly. The Financial Supervisory Service opened the door as if it was waiting for our company to do an IPO. As a result, our company was scheduled to go public on the KOSPI in July 2024, half a year after deciding on the IPO.

The media made a fuss ahead of the IPO, which was still half a year away:

[Invictus Investment enters the KOSPI!]

[Investors are already flocking to the Invictus Investment, which will be listed on the KOSPI!]

[The market capital of Invictus Investment will easily exceed a hundred billion dollars.]

The reaction of ant investors was also hot:

– Wow! Invictus Investment will be listed. It’s really awesome.-

– I’ve only followed Han Sang-hoon and bought what he bought. It’s so good. I will put my whole wealth in it.-

– I’ll sell every stock I have and load the bullets.-

The IPO boom was guaranteed. In order to achieve the “Exxxxx” Class in half a year, I had completed the process of finalizing the acquisition of domestic listed companies. With just Invictus Investment listed, the condition of twenty listed companies would be completed.

‘If I get that Exxxxx Class, I’ll be able to send Crow out twice a month. That will be much more likely to stop the nuclear war. In addition, I saw it contained… something extraordinary, right?’

I recalled the conversation with Customer Service in the past. Customer Service had told me, ‘In particular, the class above xxxxxx has a very strong skill and we recommend you achieve it.’

The Customer Service sometimes said crazy things that I didn’t understand, but they never lied.

‘A new skill in the Exxxx Class may help in the nuclear war… I don’t know what it is, but as Customer Service said, a very powerful skill could help solve the problem.’

I went back to work, waiting for our company to be listed, and for my future news to rise in grade. I had been busy buying and selling futures, making investments going back and forth between the U.S. and China, and occasionally stopping by Iceland to check the shelter. As I worked hard to avoid the coming end, time went by so fast.

Not long after my daughter Seo-hyun’s first birthday, our company finally made an initial public offering, and I was able to get the Exxxx Class…