Korean TV series: King of Peninsula 1997

Chapter 676 Acquisition Completed!

After the shareholders' meeting, neither Li You nor the shareholders and executives of Tianxia Group needed to do anything anymore.

The acquisition of Tianxia Airlines is a foregone conclusion. The acquisition process has entered this stage, and a high penalty has come into effect. The penalty, which is comparable to the acquisition amount, will ensure the smooth completion of this acquisition.

All Li You needs to do now is wait for the relevant departments of the Kinmen and Tianxia groups to negotiate and confirm the content and terms of the equity transfer agreement again, and finally hand it over to Li You and Jin Jianying for signature.

They are very quick to check and confirm the delivery conditions, payment methods and breach of contract liability that need to be clarified.

Li You returned to Kinmen Group and waited for less than two hours before the director of the Strategic Investment Department who was responsible for negotiations with Tianxia Group hurried over. The entire Strategic Investment Department consists of several regional M&A groups including North America, Europe, Asia, and Mainland China. The director is the young and strong man in his thirties in front of Li You.

But now his body under the suit and tie was obviously very tired. In order to assist the group in completing this acquisition, the man who also serves as the head of the local regional mergers and acquisitions team of the Peninsula has been working overtime for almost a week. He doesn't even go home in the middle of the night, but can't go home at all. He has been sleeping in the office these days.

He straightened his clothes and respectfully placed the document on Li You's desk with both hands, "President, please take a look."

Li You took a quick glance and found that in addition to the equity transfer agreement that Jin Jianying had already signed, there was another document.

"This is..." He briefly flipped through it, "World Airlines' transitional agreement?"

"Yes," the director replied, "In the normal acquisition process, it is necessary to agree on the rules for the transfer of management rights of the subsidiary before the handover. In order to ensure that Tianxia Airlines can operate normally for a period of time after the acquisition, many key positions need to be retained."

Li You flipped through the document. Just like the equity transfer agreement, it was already stamped with the official seals of both groups, the seals of both legal departments, and other seals.
Just waiting for him to sign and stamp.

He signed and handed the document to the director. "How is the review from Tian Xia Airlines?"

"It can be done tomorrow," said the director, as the main executive in charge of acquisitions within the Kinmen Group. Every hour, he needs to listen to the reports from the people in charge of reviewing the operating accounts and liabilities of Tian Xia Airlines. Of course, he needs to be familiar with all these things.

"Very good. We must ensure that the independent valuation covers all of Tianxia Airlines' assets, including intangible assets such as patents, to avoid subsequent litigation." Li You smiled at him appreciatively. "I have already contacted the President, and he has communicated with the Fair Trade Commission in advance, so you don't have to worry about the antitrust review by the government department."

If the buyer is an industry competitor, an antitrust review will be required. The government department will carry out this process and may even split up certain business operations and not allow them to be sold.

But just now, when Li You was waiting for the equity transfer agreement, Emperor Cui Chang, the commander-in-chief, called and informed Li You that the matter had been resolved.

It's certainly not a timely help, but it's definitely icing on the cake. Antitrust reviews have always been lengthy, so this can save a lot of time.

"Yes."

The director felt a little regretful that he had lost a job.

"Go ahead and do your work," Li You said with an encouraging smile, "If you do a good job on this acquisition, you will definitely get bonuses and vacation time."

"Yes, President!"

In the next few days, most people believed that the acquisition might take weeks or even a month or two.

Li Youneng received reports on every step of the acquisition, which was progressing at a rapid pace.

Generally speaking, the first payment of funds to Tianxia Airlines is completed within ten working days after all approvals are completed.

Only then can a new shareholder list be submitted to the company registration agency of the Korean Peninsula, the shareholder list will be updated, and the affiliation of Tianxia Airlines and Tianxia Group's subsidiaries will be cancelled.

There may also be employee protests during this period. After all, according to the negotiated resettlement plan in the Labor Standards Act of the Korean Peninsula, it is necessary to prevent strikes from affecting delivery.

But compared to the acquisition of Daying Ocean which took several whole months, the easiest thing about Kinmen Group's acquisition of Tianxia Airlines was that the shareholders and creditors, who were the most difficult to deal with during the trial, were too easy to deal with for Li You and Kinmen Group.

According to the Peninsula Commercial Law, although it was the shareholders' meeting of the Commonwealth Group that voted to sell Commonwealth Airlines, if the shareholders of Commonwealth Airlines do not support the sale of Commonwealth Airlines by the Commonwealth Group, they can buy back their original shares from the Kinmen Group at a fair price.

But this kind of thing only happens in normal acquisitions.

For the Kinmen Group, such methods and processes are obviously absolutely uneconomical and inappropriate.

After Li You acquired the majority of Tianxia Airlines shares held by Tianxia Group and Jin Jianying, he also wanted to buy more minority shares from these shareholders to further expand his control over Tianxia Airlines.

What Li You and his men did at the shareholders' meeting of Tianxia Group had already been spread out long ago.

Jeon Jae-joon, as Lee Woo's most loyal hound, named the shareholders of Tianxia Group at the shareholders' meeting with a document that contained their identity information. This clearly showed that if words didn't work, he would resort to force.

Those who were used to the gentle appearance of Li You and the Kinmen Group realized that Li You was an out-and-out violent element and a leader among the chaebol.

Although they criticized Li You's tyranny and disregard for rules in their hearts, in the face of power, no matter how big or small the shareholders were, they all bowed their heads obediently and accepted the conditions offered by Li You.

At least Li You was not trying to get something for nothing. He was willing to convert their shares into cash and give them the money. For shareholders who cooperated earlier, Li You even instructed the acquisition department to raise the price and offered a share price that was much higher than the market price.

With such a conversion price, Kinmen Group suffered a small loss on the surface. However, this approach of giving a hard time first and then a sweet date not only did not cause the small shareholders to oppose it, but instead made these people smile when they received large sums of cash, and they turned around and began to speak for Kinmen Group.

At this time when Li You insisted on leading the Kinmen Group to rule World Airlines, there was no better way than the one given by Li You.

Otherwise, if they really band together to fight against Li You, not only would they not get the money, they might not even be able to save their lives.

Moreover, the global financial crisis has just ended a few days ago, and the global investment industry has begun to revive. Large amounts of cash mean countless opportunities to make money.

After getting the cooperation of Jin Jianying, the actual controlling shareholder of Tian Xia Airlines, and the government, the Kinmen Group once again received full cooperation from the minority shareholders, whether because of the potential force or the benefits given. As a result, the subsequent progress was faster. For the Kinmen Group, which made a lot of money from the financial crisis and its own industries were basically unaffected, money was not a problem at all.

Ever since Li You planned to acquire Tianxia Airlines, he has prepared countless banknotes. The 1.5 trillion won to acquire those big names is nothing, and the money to buy those shares is even less. It is a drop in the bucket for the current financial resources of Kinmen Group.

The only problem is the debt of Air China.

But it's just a little difficult.

The debt of Tianxia Airlines is not as scary as that of Daying Ocean, and it is still within the normal debt range of the enterprise. Its major creditor is the Industrial Bank of the Korean Peninsula.

This is also because Tianxia Airlines is a semi-military enterprise. When the financial crisis caused the aviation industry to be depressed, it was able to borrow a large sum of money from the Industrial Bank every year to maintain operations. The large loans in the past two years also need to be repaid by the acquirer.

If Kinmen Group honestly repays the money in full, then Li You and Kinmen Group are not rich, but rich fools.

Every business is in debt, and this is no joke.

Li You personally led people to the Industrial Bank to discuss with the president and government officials how to repay the two loans of the past two years.

Fortunately, the Korea Development Bank is a very special state-owned bank. It is not a commercial bank, but a policy-based financial institution established with government funding. Its purpose is to engage in policy-based financing activities in specific business areas, such as in the military industry, to cooperate with the government's economic policies.

Under the dual pressure from the Grand Commander Choi Changdi and Lee Woo, the Korea Development Bank, which had originally wanted to take the opportunity to recover the loan, had no choice but to swallow the loss.

In fact, as long as the government and the Supreme Commander Cui Changdi are willing to endorse Tianxia Airlines, Li You does not even need to pay a penny for the two loans. However, if you owe money, you owe it. As the Supreme Commander Cui Changdi, he cannot force the bank to erase the large debt owed by Tianxia Airlines.

Li You still signed an agreement with Industrial Bank. Industrial Bank will significantly reduce the interest rates of the two loans to Tianxia Airlines and change the loan repayment period and method. It is expected to repay the loans in installments through operating profits in the next few years.

In this way, there is no obstacle for Kinmen Group to acquire Tian Xia Airlines.

When Li You shared the benefits with many people and wielded the banknotes and the looming butcher knife behind the banknotes, the government, courts and banks responsible for the review all cooperated fully. The combination of money and power allowed this acquisition to proceed at an unprecedentedly high efficiency.

On August 7, 2009, the Kinmen Group paid the first installment to the Tianxia Group.

At the same time, the shareholder list of the Korean Peninsula Company Registration Agency continued to change. After a series of thrilling equity exchanges and transfers, the name of Tianxia Airlines' major shareholder became Kinmen Group, and the second largest shareholder became Li You.

After the change in equity was registered, considering Li You’s controlling stake in Kinmen Group, it is self-evident who holds the actual control of World Airlines.

All the required permits were granted promptly.

Logically speaking, this is the significance of Lee Woo spending hundreds of billions of won to put Choi Changdi on the throne.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport is responsible for the routes and other businesses that are the main business of Tianxia Airlines.

After Kinmen Group submitted documents such as "Route Transfer Application", safety audit report, and capacity replacement plan.

This minister was not as tough as Roh Moo-hyun. At Cui Changdi's request, he smiled and approved the industry license for Tianxia Airlines, which belonged to the Kinmen Group, and signed and agreed to all other documents.

Next, the Golden Gate Group held a brief press conference.

After attending the meeting, Li You announced that Tianxia Airlines would be renamed Kinmen Airlines, and explained that the interests of employees would be protected, and there would never be large-scale layoffs. He would also ensure the normal operation of Kinmen Airlines and ensure that the citizens of the peninsula could travel freely to all parts of the world.

After the Kinmen Group's press conference, the Korea Development Bank also held a press conference, stating that considering that Kinmen Airlines had just been acquired, in order to reduce Kinmen Airlines' operating pressure, it would change the repayment period and method of debts owed from the former World Airlines period.

It was not only the Industrial Bank that held a press conference at the same time. The National Tax Service and the Ministry of Labor also held press conferences.

The National Tax Service mainly wanted to strengthen the rationality of the acquisition process for the people. At the same time, it stated that it would pursue capital gains tax from the Kinmen Group. However, considering that Kinmen Airlines had just been acquired, the tax would be postponed for a period of time.

In the next few days, Kinmen Group issued a series of announcements stating that it was reconfirming the number of passenger planes, cargo planes, containers, airports and customer contracts to ensure that passenger and cargo transportation would continue to operate normally.

This is not bankruptcy reorganization. It takes a long time to reorganize and run the business again. This is almost a complete takeover.

In fact, all the employees of Kinmen Airlines were not affected for long. They just received a notice that they had changed from employees of Tianxia Group to employees of Kinmen Group. Other than that, there was almost no impact on them.

At the same time, Kinmen Group also sent dozens of senior managers to Kinmen Airlines to begin learning the various management operations of Kinmen Airlines and prepare to replace the management in the future. As for the original executives, those with outstanding performance can choose to stay, and those who do not meet the new requirements of Kinmen Airlines will be assigned to work in other subsidiaries of Kinmen Group.

Except for a few delays in takeoff in the few days after the acquisition, the rest of Kinmen Airlines' passenger operations were not affected.

On August 14, the new Kinmen Airlines officially convened a new board of directors and invited people from all walks of life to attend the meeting, including but not limited to online media reporters, TV reporters, government officials, representatives from various banks, and investors who are willing to invest in Kinmen Airlines.

Li You, chairman of the Kinmen Group and chairman of the board of directors of Kinmen Airlines, will also attend the meeting.

Kinmen Airlines' meeting was held at the Shilla Hotel, the top hotel on the peninsula that Li You acquired from the Sunyang Group many years ago. It once again became the focus of the entire Korean Peninsula.

Especially those military personnel who were unable to attend the meeting, they knew that Li You’s takeover of Kinmen Airlines was largely aimed at military-industrial enterprises.

Not to mention the military industry, the Korean Peninsula is a peninsula country that relies entirely on airplanes and ships for external transportation. This is a meeting that truly concerns the national economy and people's livelihood.

Therefore, the entire meeting will be broadcast in front of television cameras so that all concerned citizens of the Peninsula can know its content.

(End of this chapter)