American Medicine God: Starting by Inheriting a Pharmaceutical Company and Selling Medicine

Although the CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States) investigation temporarily froze Sakura Pharmaceuticals' offensive, Victor knew very well that this was just a delaying tactic. The executive order could only buy time, but it could not eliminate the capital in the enemy's hands.

As he left Capitol Hill, he didn't linger, not even having time to celebrate his victory with Michael who had helped him, before boarding a plane to New York.

"Since they set fire to our home turf."

"Then let's go to their lair and make a hole in the sky."

......

Neon lights halfway around the world.

Tokyo, Ginza.

Tokyo in the winter of 1989, at the peak of the most insane bubble economy in human history.

In the VIP rooms of the upscale members-only club "Lumiere," Monet's original paintings hang on the walls, and even the plates used to serve sashimi are antiques from the Edo period.

Kenji Tanaka sat on a velvet sofa, swirling a glass of whiskey in his hand. Beside him sat two top-class geishas dressed in Kyoto Yuzen kimonos, carefully sprinkling edible gold leaf onto a large, fatty bluefin tuna.

In Tokyo during that era, gold leaf was not a decoration, but a condiment.

"President, Vice President Yamamoto has sent word," said Kobayashi, the CFO of Sakura Pharmaceuticals, kneeling opposite him with a fine layer of sweat on his forehead. "In Washington... CFIUS has officially launched a national security review. The acquisition may be frozen indefinitely, at least for 12 to 18 months."

"A year?!"

Kenji Tanaka slammed the crystal glass in his hand onto the table.

"Snapped!"

The crystal glass shattered, splattering amber-colored wine and ice all over the floor, startling the geisha next to her who screamed and cowered in fear.

"Damn it! These damn Americans! They can't take a loss, so they flip the table!" Kenji Tanaka roared, veins bulging on his neck. "They're cheating! National security? Biological warfare? It's all just excuses!"

He stood up, strode to the floor-to-ceiling window, and looked down at the dazzling Ginza street below.

On the street, salaried workers who had just finished get off work waved large sums of money (ten thousand yuan) and scrambled for taxis, because no one wanted to take the subway.

"Look, Kobayashi!" Tanaka opened his arms, embracing the prosperity. "This is power. Three years ago, those Western countries forced the yen to appreciate through the Plaza Accord, trying to stifle our exports. And what was the result? They only made us richer."

"Now, Sony has bought Columbia Pictures, Mitsubishi has bought Rockefeller Center, and we have more golf courses in Hawaii than in the United States. And I will buy the American pharmaceutical industry."

"But... President," Kobayashi said, unaffected by the fervor, as he pulled a financial statement from his briefcase, his voice trembling, "we borrowed a total of $20 billion in bridge loans from Sumitomo Bank and Industrial Bank to acquire Vought. This money has a cost."

"In order to obtain this loan, we re-mortgaged our headquarters building in Chiyoda Ward, our three factories in Saitama Prefecture, and our shares in Toyota Motor and Panasonic."

Kobayashi pointed to a line of red text on the report, which was the leverage ratio that made his heart pound.

"Our combined loan-to-value (LTV) ratio has reached 120%. That is to say, banks are only willing to lend us money if our collateral, the land and stocks, appreciates by at least 20% every year."

"So what?" Tanaka scoffed. "When has Tokyo's land price ever fallen? The land beneath the Imperial Palace is worth more than the entire state of California! That's common sense!"

"But, President..." Kobayashi swallowed hard, attempting a final warning, "There's been a lot of talk about the Basel Accords lately. The Bank for International Settlements is requiring Japanese banks to increase their capital adequacy ratios. If banks tighten lending to meet these requirements, or if the stock market fluctuates..."

"Shut up!"

Tanaka suddenly turned around, his eyes fierce as if he wanted to devour someone.

"No buts! Land prices in Tokyo will always rise! That's the Ministry of Finance's national policy! As long as land prices keep rising, banks will be begging to lend us money. We are invincible."

He accepted the new wine glass that the geisha tremblingly offered and gave it a perfunctory salute to the Tokyo Tower outside the window.

"Let the Americans investigate. When they wake up, they'll find that even their president's underwear has 'Made in Japan' printed on it."

Tanaka downed the strong liquor in one gulp, the spiciness sliding down his throat giving him a sense of triumph. But he didn't notice that the neon lights outside the window seemed to flicker, as if it were a sign of an unstable voltage.

...

Lower Manhattan, New York.

Unlike the heat of Tokyo, New York winters are quite cold.

At 85 Broad Street, in the Goldman Sachs headquarters building, in a top-secret conference room, the blinds were drawn tightly shut.

Victor sat at the head of the long table.

Sitting across from him were three of Wall Street’s most astute, and also most greedy, hedge fund managers.

On the left is Jim Chanos, a senior partner and a bald man known for shorting Enron; in the middle is a representative from Julian Robertson's Tiger Fund; and on the right is Stanley, a strategist from George Soros' Quantum Fund.

They are called "vultures." Wherever there is carrion, there they are.

"Gentlemen, thank you for coming in this terrible weather." Victor skipped the pleasantries and gestured directly to Thor.

"Turn off the lights."

Thor pressed the switch. The projector beam shone on the whiteboard, displaying a complex architecture diagram covered with dense red lines and numbers.

"This is our 'inspection report' on Sakura Pharmaceuticals." Victor held a laser pointer in his hand, and a red dot landed on a data point.

"Sakura Pharmaceutical's hostile takeover attempt appears to be an industry consolidation, but it's actually a classic leveraged buyout (LBO)," Saul said, adjusting his glasses. "But their leverage point is interesting. They're not using cash flow, but rather an 'illusion.'"

"Hallucination?" The Tiger Fund representative raised an eyebrow.

"They used a financial engineering technique called 'Zaitech,'" Saul explained. "They mortgaged the company's land assets to banks at market valuations to borrow cash to speculate on stocks; then they counted the stock profits as company profits, which in turn drove up the stock price; and when the stock price went up, the banks were more willing to lend more money."

"That's like stepping on your own two feet to get ahead," Chanos's partner sneered. "A variant of a Ponzi scheme."

“That’s right,” Victor continued, “but what if I told you that the core assumption behind Sakura Pharmaceuticals’ cycle is that ‘Tokyo land prices will always rise’?”

"So what?" Stanley of the Quantum Fund said impatiently. "It's a globally recognized fact. The Japanese government will protect land prices to the death. We all know how protective the Japanese Ministry of Finance is; it's their lifeline."

"That seems to be the case," Victor smiled. "But what if the laws change?"

He took a sealed, transparent document bag from his briefcase, inside which was a copy of a document entirely in Japanese.

"This is a draft internal memorandum from the Bank of Japan Governor's Office that I obtained through some...unofficial channels."