“Already made team leader?”
“Yes, thanks to how much you looked after me, Director!”
“I don’t recall looking after you that much. At this rate, won’t you be a division director by next year?”
“Haha.”
After the gathering broke up, we met separately.
Director Park Seongcheol greeted me with a bright expression.
It was a relief. The last time I had seen him, his face had been steeped in frustration and guilt. He had failed to stop the pension reform, and because of that he had only made himself a target and been driven out.
Yet when I met him again a few years later, he looked every inch the wealthy man of means. After retirement, he even seemed to have grown younger.
“By the way, Director, you’re looking much better.”
“The effects of quitting drinking and smoking must finally be showing, eh? Hahaha.”
“How’s work been? I heard from the prime minister earlier that you had an overseas schedule...?”
“Oh, that? I went to Japan to play a little golf.”
“...Excuse me?”
“That’s what my schedule’s like these days. I go nice places with the wife, play golf with friends, and laze around. But how could I say that to the prime minister? I just glossed over it by saying I had an overseas schedule.”
“Ah, yes... Well, that isn’t exactly wrong. A schedule is a schedule.”
It seemed this old man had chosen the wrong career path. He should have lived as an artist, not an investor... No, perhaps financial freedom had made him as free as a hippie.
“To be honest, I didn’t want to do it in the first place. They drove me out for opposing the pension reform, and now they want me to put together a portfolio?”
“Then why...?”
“When I thought about it carefully, it felt like my final duty. Since I couldn’t stop them from scattering the money, I should at least help them earn more.”
“As expected of you, Director. You’re trying to settle now what you couldn’t finish while you were still active...”
“Well, truthfully, that’s just an excuse. I asked for a hefty incentive.”
“...Excuse me?”
“Prime Minister Lee Chanho said he’d pay me a big incentive if I put together a good portfolio. What choice do I have? I was barred from taking a job at a securities firm for three years because of post-public-service employment restrictions, so I need to earn through this at least. Huhuhuhu.”
Playing around like an immature uncle, he lifted his coffee cup and asked me,
“By the way, our Team Leader Lee, I hear you’ve been causing quite a few incidents while I was gone?”
“Pardon?”
“I heard it all from Chief Oh—no, Director Oh. You dodged Western financial sanctions through an entrusted manager, didn’t you? Used that to buy Russian bonds and secure missile technology.”
“...You knew all that?”
“How could I live without knowing something on that scale? Whenever I meet former employees now and then, all they talk about is you.”
He stirred his coffee with a bitter smile.
“I knew you’d be like this.”
I laughed awkwardly as well.
“Team Leader Lee, do you remember what I asked of you before I retired?”
“Yes, I’ve kept it well all this time. You told me not to go up against power.”
“No, in the broader sense, I meant you shouldn’t mingle with power. But it seems my prediction was right. How is it that you only picked things that would get you scolded? Huhuhuhu.”
I scratched my head. In truth, “things that would get me scolded” was putting it mildly. I had caused incidents where it wouldn’t have been strange if I’d ended up in prison or been dragged off by the National Intelligence Service.
“Anyway, enough about the old days. Let’s focus on the Growth Fund.”
“Yes, sir.”
“By the way, the other committee members seem to have already built their portfolios. I wonder if there’s anything left for me to do. Looks like I’ll be taking an advisory fee without doing a thing, hahaha.”
Carefully watching his expression, I added,
“Um, Director... As it happens, I have one proposal related to that...”
*
“Who did you say?”
—Team Leader Lee Sejun from the pension fund.
“A young kid’s already a team leader at the pension fund?”
—Apparently his performance was good. They say he’s famous internally for his strong returns.
“Tsk, tsk. Who can’t make money in stocks these days? But how impressive is he, to be acquainted with Director Park Seongcheol?”
At the same time, at the Plaza Hotel.
In a separate gathering of the real(?) players, Choe Hoyeong frowned.
He couldn’t accept it. Weren’t all the people gathered here major figures in the industry? They were people who had at least reached executive level at the country’s largest asset management firms, or were recording spectacular returns with hedge funds.
And yet some green, wet-behind-the-ears brat had dared to join this table... He truly couldn’t accept it. Who couldn’t make money in a bull market?
“What? He bought Russian bonds?”
—Yes. He laundered it into Chinese money through an entrusted manager. Thanks to that, he dodged Western financial sanctions and bought bonds worth several trillion won.
“Director Kim, aren’t you trusting market rumors too much? No matter how I look at it, that’s not a scale a young punk could handle.”
—Do you think I didn’t suspect as much? But it doesn’t make sense either that such a young kid became a team leader at the pension fund, where personnel bottlenecks are worse than in the military. Even if that story isn’t true, I think he must have produced some comparable achievement to earn that title.
Choe Hoyeong was dumbfounded.
What was absurd was that, now that he heard it, there was a point. The very fact that the guy had come as the pension fund’s representative to this investment advisory committee specially cast by the government showed his standing within the organization.
The Russian bond purchase might not be true, but he must certainly have pulled off an investment jackpot on a similar scale.
“Fine, let’s say that’s true. But why would someone so smart say something so absurd at the meeting?”
With his words as the trigger, complaints erupted from all around.
—Exactly. What on earth is he talking about?
—Right now, we’re busy enough scooping up semiconductors. It’s such a certain theme that even touching other assets for hedging feels like a waste.
—Even if we gave him every benefit of the doubt, I could understand diversifying into KOSPI shipbuilding, defense, and nuclear power. But I have no idea why he wants to buy KOSDAQ stocks.
What made that young bastard irritating was that he didn’t keep his mouth shut.
He had recommended some junk stocks for this Growth Fund portfolio. The bio sector, already drained of all its sweetness and plunging back to its share prices from three years ago... Every single one of them had rock-bottom sales, and no one could guarantee their outlook.
“So everyone thinks the same as I do, right?”
—Yes, Director! We need to push back hard on this. Ten years ago, when the Green Fund collapsed, the people who made it nearly got executed! We can’t end up like that.
—Bio or whatever, in the end AI will do it all! So it has to be semiconductors all the more!
In fact, lately there had been more and more talk of a “K-shaped rebound” and “stock market polarization,” and the U.S. market was the same.
Ten years ago, tech stocks had not made up even twenty to thirty percent of the NASDAQ, but now they accounted for forty to fifty percent.
It seemed all investors were thinking the same thing. Whether it was bio or manufacturing, AI or physical AI would take care of it.
That was precisely why it was such ignorant nonsense. With concerns emerging that AI could even replace humans, what was all this about bio? AI had even snatched the Nobel Prize in Chemistry three years ago. They said AI could predict protein structures better than most master’s and doctoral degree holders.
And yet humans dared to do bio...?
“Good. It’s reassuring that at least you’re all here. That young punk—if he spouts nonsense again, crush him completely. I’ll say it again: for this Growth Fund, first priority must be returns, and second priority must also be returns. If it’s not semiconductors, then companies subcontracting for semiconductors. Let’s structure it as much as possible that way.”
Just as it seemed the opinions were coming together, one man cautiously raised his hand.
—But Director... even if that’s what we think, doesn’t the most important person’s opinion still remain?
“Director Park Seongcheol?”
—Yes. Even when he was active, he was a rare aggressive investor. After the subprime crisis, he was the one who changed the pension fund’s bond-centered portfolio into a stock-centered one. More than anything else, I’m bothered by his friendship with that young guy.
—Director, I feel the same way about that. Those two seemed closer than expected.
—They say one’s arm bends inward. What if Director Park ends up taking that guy’s side?
Choe Hoyeong shook his head at once.
“You’re worrying too much. That old man may look soft from the outside, but he’s straight as bamboo. He draws a clear line between public and private matters. Do you think he’d take that guy’s side just because they’re acquainted?”
—Now that you say it, that’s true...
“Stop saying useless things and prepare your references properly by the next meeting. What is there to worry about? No matter how much data you dig through, all of it points to semiconductors. As long as we prepare well, that’s the end of it.”
At those words, everyone nodded.
The friendship between the two of them was bothersome, but... surely not.
*
The second portfolio meeting was held at the Yeouido Stock Market Center.
The purpose was to hear from experts in various fields and from the corporate side as well... but the situation unfolded differently from what I had expected.
—Semiconductors! Semiconductors! Semiconductors!
—Those JPMorgan bastards aren’t dead yet, are they? At this rate, we really might hit KOSPI 7000!
Today, too, the KOSPI closed at a record high.
Even though the NASDAQ had ended the previous day down by around one percent, the KOSPI renewed its previous peak.
The secret was, as expected, semiconductors. The reason the NASDAQ had been poor recently was concern over excessive investment by Big Tech. Yet despite shareholders’ worries, not a single Big Tech company had said it would reduce investment in AI facilities.
Thanks to that, only the ones selling pickaxes were making out like bandits.
The market interpreted Big Tech’s moves to expand AI facilities despite overriding investors’ concerns as a massive semiconductor jackpot.
On top of that, JPMorgan released an investment report saying, “The U.S. government is gradually beginning to worry about Korea’s semiconductor monopoly, and attempts to build factories within the United States will increase going forward.” It was a farce in which the prime contractor worried that its subcontractor might change its mind.
“...”
But I couldn’t simply smile at this scorching market fever.
As the experts predicted, the semiconductor boom hadn’t even begun yet. It would soar from here. But I knew very well what would happen to the other industries.
At least before I died, there had been no sight of AI replacing humans. But because preparations for it were poor, Korea’s other industries steadily lost competitiveness.
“...”
Among them, the one that bothered me most was bio.
Unlike other countries, Korea was entering an aging society faster than anyone else, and the medical services sector grew explosively every year. But because we lacked the original technologies, we had to pay enormous royalties overseas every year.
But the foundation was weak.
The reality was that the pharmaceutical industry lagged behind Europe, and in medical technology, we were even being caught by China.
“Well, it seems we’ve heard everything we need to hear from industry people, so let’s begin the meeting.”
When Director Park Seongcheol opened the meeting, I clenched my fist tightly.
For the Growth Fund’s true purpose, it was something that absolutely had to be said... but could I really persuade them?