Reboot the heyday

When news of the peace talks arrived, Wang Taika was in his office reviewing the latest financial statements.

Duck King pushed open the door and came in, his expression somewhat complicated: "Samsung's Shin Moon-sung sent someone to tell us that they want to schedule a meeting. They've probably given in."

Wang Taika raised his head, looked at him, and didn't say anything.

Duck King added, "Samsung sent a message through several intermediaries, implying that the previous events were all misunderstandings, and that everyone should sit down and talk things over to make money peacefully."

"A misunderstanding?" Wang Taika chuckled and put down the report. "I really thought he'd be more responsible for his actions, but I never expected his final excuse to be so stupid. Why didn't he say it was a misunderstanding when he hit me?"

The Duck King scratched his head: "Anyway, that's what they said. So what should we say? Refuse to see them?"

Wang Taika was silent for a few seconds, then stood up and walked to the window.

The sunlight outside the window was lovely, and the Seoul sky was a rare, clear blue. I recalled a few months ago, when Hanjin and Samsung joined forces to suppress us, that suffocating feeling of being surrounded on all sides. Back then, I gritted my teeth and held on, trying to find ways to fight back while simultaneously trying to stabilize the internal morale.

Now, the opponent has given in.

Given Wang Taika's past temper, now that he's already flipped the table, he'll definitely relentlessly pursue the attack, determined to leave the other side severely injured. Whether it's a fight to the death or mutual destruction, he won't suffer any losses.

But Wang Taika is no longer the impetuous and reckless young man he once was.

Mature? Perhaps. More accurately, it's about learning to keep track of costs.

“I’ll see him.” Wang Taika turned around and looked at Duck King: “But it’s not me going to see him, nor is it you going to see him. We need to find a specialist.”

The Duck King paused for a moment: "You're not going?"

"Does he deserve to negotiate with me?" Wang Tai paused, then continued, "Besides, I'm not good at negotiating. What I'm good at is flipping tables. Now that the table hasn't been flipped, if we want to sit down and talk, we need to find someone who knows how to negotiate. Now that the crisis is over, shouldn't that former President Lee step forward? I gave his consulting firm quite a bit of money."

The Duck King's eyes lit up: "I understand! So what's our bottom line?"

Wang Taika thought for a moment and slowly said, "First, from now on, Samsung cannot target Cornerstone Industries in any business. Neither openly nor covertly. Second, we lost a lot of customers because of their suppression before, and they have to compensate us for that. You can discuss the specifics of the compensation. Third, we need to acquire some of the shares held by Samsung."

The Duck King gasped, "Isn't this third condition a bit harsh? Will they agree to it?"

Wang Taika said, "It's not Samsung's shares, it's the shares they hold in those social media and new media companies. XB Entertainment needs its own promotional channels, and this is a good opportunity."

"That's farsighted," said the Duck King. "That way, we won't have to worry about anything in the future."

“Naive,” Wang Taika said. “The first condition, hehe, even if they agree, they’ll definitely go back on their word. But it doesn’t matter, as long as Shin Moon-sung stops causing trouble before Lee Jae-yong comes out. If they don’t agree to these demands, just keep harping on their successor issue. Lee Jae-yong is still locked up, and his son’s situation is getting bigger and bigger, they’re more anxious than we are. Go ahead and negotiate, make a huge demand, and then slowly wear them down.”

Even if Samsung had prepared in advance regarding the succession issue, there was no way to prevent it. This is a real weakness, and even if they were to use it again later, its effectiveness, though diminished, would still be significant.

The Duck King nodded and turned to leave.

"Wait a minute," Wang Taika called out to him. "Bring your legal team. All the terms negotiated must be written down. Don't leave any loopholes."

"understand!"

Surprisingly, former President Lee had foreseen the developments in this matter. To be precise, he was already certain that Wang Taika's side would win when the issue of succession began to be hyped up.

He just hadn't expected that Wang Taika would entrust his company with the negotiation. You see, before this, the former boss, Old Li, had been constantly trying to persuade Wang Taika to back down.

However, because of these past events, Lao Li did not slack off and focused on helping Wang Taika to maximize his benefits.

Ultimately, nothing is more stable than self-interest.

The consulting firm's team battled Shin Moon-sung's forces for two days and two nights in a conference room at a hotel in Seoul. The process was fraught with difficulties, but the result satisfied Wang Taika. Samsung promised not to engage in any form of commercial suppression against Cornerstone Industries in the future. Furthermore, Samsung would compensate clients lost due to pressure from Samsung-affiliated companies by collaborating with Cornerstone Industries.

What was originally intended as compensation was transformed by Samsung into a win-win collaboration, which shows that Samsung has some capable people.

Regarding the acquisition of social media stock, Samsung initially strongly opposed it. They had already suffered losses in this matter, and were unwilling to allow Wang Taika to hold a larger stake in new media promotion channels.

However, Cornerstone Industries took a hard line, even hinting that they would continue to investigate the issue of Lee's successor. Ultimately, Samsung compromised and agreed to sell some of its shares.

In exchange, Wang Taika promised to help suppress the controversy surrounding Samsung's successor until it subsided.

After the negotiations concluded, Shen Wencheng had someone relay a message to Wang Taika.

"You're ruthless, I'm impressed."

When Duck King brought these words back, Wang Taika just smiled and didn't say anything.

You give up?

However, such words are merely hypocritical and more like a disguise designed to lull people into a false sense of security.

Ultimately, it's just a temporary concesion. Samsung, this behemoth, won't truly submit to anyone. But buying themselves some breathing room is enough.

However, the immediate troubles have been temporarily resolved. After the news spread, Cornerstone Industries' reputation soared.

Insiders understand that being able to challenge Samsung and force them to sit down and negotiate is practically unheard of in the South Korean business world. This time, it truly demonstrates the strength of Cornerstone Industries.

But thinking about it again, Cornerstone Industries was originally a company spun off from the Samsung Group, an enterprise the former chairman used to compensate his illegitimate son. Although its ownership is now a mystery, strictly speaking, it's Samsung fighting Samsung, so any outcome wouldn't be surprising.

Samsung also publicized it this way. Samsung's actions against Samsung served two purposes: to salvage its own reputation and to obscure the ownership of Cornerstone Industries. Ultimately, the goal was to leave Wang Taika, the true owner, with the title but no real ownership.

Wang Taika is very clear-headed about this. This victory was actually achieved through clever maneuvering. On one hand, there's Samsung's ally, Hanjin, which has too many problems and is prone to making a major blunder. On the other hand, it all rests on the success of the propaganda war. But such tactics cannot be used as a trump card.

Ultimately, it's crucial to solidify the company's foundation in order to truly establish a firm foothold. Achieving this requires more resources and greater investment.

Wang Taika is indeed the kind of person who, aside from women, doesn't distinguish between "yours" and "mine." Money is important, but it becomes less important once it reaches a certain amount. Therefore, after this success, he allocated a large portion of the profits to reward the domestic investors who had supported him during this period.

This acquisition of shares in a social media and new media company is also an experiment for Wang Taika. He actually wants to see if he can replicate the path of Tencent in China.

Although it's a bit late to the game, it's not outdated. A large portion of the three shares sold belonged to a company called Kakao, whose business covers social networking, payments, gaming, and transportation—basically the Korean version of Tencent. Tencent itself already holds a significant stake, being one of the top three shareholders.

Tencent is investing in the ecosystem, while Wang Taika wants a voice in the industry. If both sides get what they want, then Wang Taika could actually cooperate with Tencent.

Cornerstone Capital and XB Entertainment, both with investment departments, have already been quietly acquiring Kakao shares on the secondary market. Meanwhile, their collaboration with Tencent is also progressing.

The process went smoothly. After all the acquisitions and the portion sold by Samsung, three months later, Wang Taika held nearly 5% of Kakao's shares. While this may not seem like much, these shares were enough to influence certain major decisions.

The subsequent handling of these matters will naturally be left to the professionals. Wang Taika is only suitable for starting things up; he's not up to the specifics of the operation.

With the big problem solved, Wang Taika's next task is to focus on f(x)'s European tour.

Function Europe Tour, XB Entertainment Family Concert, Second, Third and Fourth Generation Invitational Concert.

This three-step plan is finally about to take its first step. (End of Chapter)