“The real power that moves the market lies in unseen places.”
“It hits us in the back of the head, believing that the conglomerates are the same as power.”

Sampro TV hosts MBC Standard FM's "Economy in Your Hands."
A book recommended by Lee Jin-woo, CEO of Understanding!

The invisible hands that moved the Korean economy,
Who are they?

“If Dan Sa-cheon wanted to, he could take down a few conglomerates.”
“30% of the stocks traded each day come from Gwanghwamun Bear’s account.”
“Half of the land in Gangnam, Seoul belongs to Kim Hyung-mok.”

Have you ever heard the stories of these legendary business tycoons of the past? Unlike the famous conglomerates like Samsung and the Hyundai family, who frequently appear in the news, they are less well-known to the public. Yet, without them, Korean economic history would be incomplete.

We call these big shots, who are good at reading the times and the flow of money and try to keep the money with them as long as possible.
The author, known as a stock market expert and a leading figure in the economic world, traces the footsteps of the hidden big shots in the Korean economy, known only to the public through his reporting, and reveals how they conducted themselves and made money in their own time.

One of the people who lived in this era was the King of Cash, Dan Sa-cheon.
He was a figure who dominated the Myeongdong loan sharking industry along with Grandma Baek, who was also from the North.
During his prime, he was so wealthy that he lent money to conglomerate chairmen such as Lee Byung-chul of Samsung Group and Chung Ju-young of Hyundai Group, and even they would jump up and answer his phone when he called them.
Because of this, in the past, rumors circulated in the business world and the Myeongdong private loan market surrounding him, such as, "If he puts his mind to it, he can take down a few conglomerates," and "If he calls, even the heads of corporations will come running."
Even the conglomerates were manipulated by the power of money.

During the economic development period, when the financing capacity of financial markets such as banks could not keep up with the pace of corporate growth, he frequently lent money to cash-starved companies.
He dominated the private loan industry and was called the pawnshop of the business world because he required companies, factories, and land as collateral when lending money.
In particular, in the mid-1960s, when the annual operating profit of Samsung Group, the largest group in Korea, was 18 billion won, the financial power that could be mobilized in a single day, including the funds held by himself and those of all subsidiaries, reached 6 billion won.
He had been ranked among the top taxpayers since the late 1960s, and in the 1980s, he had a whopping 300 billion won in cash available.
--- p.36 From “Cash King Dan Sa-cheon”

On March 28, 1961, he handed over 1.2 million won to Lieutenant Colonel Kim Jong-pil, head of the planning department of the Army Headquarters Intelligence Staff Department, who was at the core of the coup forces.
A few days later, on April 4th, Major General Park Chung-hee visited his office in person, and at that time he gave him 1 million won.
It is said that after that, he gave an additional 2 million won to Lieutenant Colonel Kim Jong-pil on two occasions.

Also, on Saturday, May 13th of that year, he sent the 4 million won he had in his possession to Lieutenant Colonel Kim Jong-pil, and then on Monday, the 15th, after the weekend, he handed over an additional 1 million won to Major General Park Chung-hee.
In this way, he gave a total of 9.2 million won to Major General Park Chung-hee and Lieutenant Colonel Kim Jong-pil on several occasions, and this was the opportunity for him to serve as an advisory member of the Finance and Economic Committee of the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction after the military took power.
Considering the prices at the time, the price of a sack of rice was around 18,000 hwan, so the 9.2 million hwan he gave would be worth 100 million won today.
--- p.50 From “Nam Sang-ok, who interfered with the military regime”

In 1980, he bought a large amount of stock in a construction company and established his own asset management company, Sehyung Sangsa, in the Sejong Building in Gwanghwamun, earning the nickname “Gwanghwamun Bear” and becoming a big shot in the stock market.
At the time, he wielded enormous influence in the stock market, to the point where people said, “30% of the total daily stock trading volume comes from Gwanghwamun Bear’s account,” and “If there’s even a rumor that Gwanghwamun Bear bought a certain stock, that stock will skyrocket.”
According to securities industry sources, he had enough financial resources to place orders for all construction stocks at the upper limit during the boom in the Middle East construction market from 1976 to 1978.
However, it is known that he suffered a large loss after concentrating on construction stocks at the end of the construction stock wave.

He was an investor who invested in stock accounts spread across various securities firms and managed real estate through about 10 employees of Sehyung Trading Company.
It was known that his daily cash mobilization capacity was in the hundreds of billions of won, and his total assets including real estate amounted to hundreds of billions of won.
Although it was not an exact estimate at the time, it was widely rumored in the stock market that the assets he was managing were worth 500 billion won.
This amount of money is said to be equivalent to the wealth of Samsung Chairman Lee Byung-chul, who was the richest man in Korea in 1976.
--- p.78 From "Gwanghwamun Bear, the Eternal Big Hand in the Stock Market"

Her stock investment philosophy was to invest only in blue-chip companies and to hold onto each investment for at least two to three years.
She was so good at interpreting corporate information that she could read a company's financial statements at a glance.
I also liked stocks that had solid core assets, such as real estate, or that consistently generated net profits.
I invested in asset stocks and value stocks early on.

She is also famous as the mentor of Park Hyun-joo, Chairman of Mirae Asset Group.
He said that when he was a graduate student, he heard that Grandma Baek was a big shot in the Myeongdong loan market, so he went to see her and asked her to teach him how to invest in stocks.
According to rumors circulating in the market, she reportedly refused him at the time, saying, “Young people should think for themselves. What can you learn from an old man like me?”
He occasionally went to her office and accompanied her on visits to securities firms and other companies, and the impression he got from her was that she was an investor who adhered to the principles of orthodox investment to a frustrating degree.
--- p.86 From “Big Mama Baek and Her Son’s Failure”

The richest real estate investor in Gangnam, hidden behind a veil, is Park Ok-seong, CEO of Chilsan Development.
He was born in 1933, and other than the fact that he has a wife and two sons, nothing is known about his background, including his place of birth.
It is only known that he worked for an organization under the Central Intelligence Agency during the Park Chung-hee administration, and that he was the driver for Lee Hu-rak, who was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency at the time and directly designed the development of Gangnam, and then worked as the driver for Park Kyung-won, who later served as the Minister of Home Affairs.

Lee Hu-rak had his driver, Park Ok-seong, whom he trusted, purchase a significant amount of land under another person's name. It is said that Lee Hu-rak may have purchased the land under Park Ok-seong's name, not his own.
This speculation is supported by rumors that Park Ok-seong approached real estate agents by introducing himself as a former civil servant while riding in an official vehicle and carrying a walkie-talkie since the late 1960s.
It is said that most of the real estate owned by Park Ok-seong was purchased in the 1970s, and the total purchase price of the land at that time was approximately 40 million won.
At the time, the monthly salary of a high-ranking civil servant was around 80,000 won, so this was an amount of money that Park Ok-seong, an ordinary driver, could never have had except through personal inheritance.
--- p.152 From “Chilsan Development Park Ok-seong”

Jang Gi-cheol, who was called Mokpo's three-legged octopus for shaking up the futures market like a three-legged octopus stirring up the mud flats, graduated from Mokpo Commercial High School, the same school that produced President Kim Dae-jung, in 1985, joined Daishin Securities, and worked in the headquarters computer room before starting his stock sales career in 1989.
And before the foreign exchange crisis, he went down to his hometown, the Mokpo branch of Daishin Securities, and from then on, he stood out in the futures market.

According to rumors circulating in the market at the time, he was said to have traded about 40% of the daily trading volume in the futures market by himself.
This means that if he takes a long position, everyone else must follow him and buy, and if he changes his position to short, everyone else must sell.
Otherwise, it would not have been able to survive in the market.

He entered the futures market shortly after stock index futures began trading in 1996.
In the relatively lax derivatives market at the time, he went beyond interacting with market makers and even acted as a market maker himself, making a lot of money.
Thanks to this, he was promoted from assistant manager to manager in just two years.
He was a high school graduate who rose to the position of manager just 14 years after joining Daishin Securities, becoming a legend at the company and was even featured in the Asian Wall Street Journal in 1999.
--- p.227 From “Mokpo’s Three-legged Octopus, Jang Gi-cheol, Dominates 40% of the Gift Market”

He made money by dealing in various types of bonds, such as government bonds and CDs, in the private loan market, learning market principles.
He also graduated from Gyeonggi High School's Broadcasting and Correspondence High School and later graduated from the Department of Business Administration at Gyeonggi University.
He also made efforts to acquire an academic background commensurate with his social status and financial resources, such as completing the CEO program at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies and the CEO Industrial Strategy program at Seoul National University.

When the real-name financial transaction system was announced on August 12, 1993, the Myeongdong private loan market began to stir.
The only thought on the minds of the loan sharks was that they were now ruined.
In the past, many people accumulated funds whose sources were difficult to identify in accounts under false or borrowed names, or in anonymous CDs.
Among these, there were some people for whom it was absolutely difficult to change their real names.
However, the government set the period for converting funds to real names to two months.

At this point he started to move.
His main way of making money was by charging fees for laundering hidden money.
Typically, a 5% commission is charged on the laundry service.
The money received was 1 billion won, after returning 20 billion won that had not seen the light of day to the owner through banks and securities firms.
--- p.243 From "Kim Hyung-jin's Baekhan Wheel of Making Money in the Niche Bond Market"

What caught their eye at that time was the stock market.
In particular, after seeing that investing in KOSDAQ or pre-KOSDAQ before listing on KOSDAQ yielded returns of 10 or 20 times, organized crime groups began to enter the financial and capital markets in earnest.
Gangsters entered not only the stock market but also the private loan business, and during the real estate boom, they even jumped into redevelopment and construction projects.
But their true colors did not change.
There were constant brawls between factions over vested interests, and when things got out of hand, they did not hesitate to resort to assault, threats, or kidnapping.

Since then, the gangsters have transformed themselves and become corporate raiders targeting KOSDAQ-listed companies.
They raised funds for acquisitions mainly through private loans and caused controversy by using company funds as if they were pocket change.
Some of them even got involved in stock price manipulation, causing headaches for the relevant authorities.
According to the Financial Supervisory Service, although exact statistics have not been compiled, it is believed that a significant number of KOSDAQ companies received funds from organized crime.
A representative of a KOSDAQ-listed company said, “Private loans with gangster connections are an open secret on KOSDAQ.
Companies with frequent management changes need to be especially careful.
“If you go in wrong, you could get kicked in the can,” he said.
--- p.270 From "The New Forces of the Stock Market: Gangsters"

He devoted a lot of time to developing his investment strategy, poring over his home trading system every day, analyzing macroeconomic indicators late into the night, and checking the U.S. market in the early morning.
Through these efforts, he increased his investment resources to approximately 100 billion won by the end of 2005, while achieving an average return of 400% annually.
Deciding that he no longer needed to risk his funds, he reduced futures trading in 2006 and instead used a strategy of selling options (strangles and straddles), generating 20-30% in profits each year, increasing his investment funds to nearly 200 billion won.
The cumulative return over six years was 2,000%.

He became a big issue in the securities industry when rumors spread that he had earned 1 trillion won.
The rumor was that he had made a profit of 1 trillion won by investing in futures and options while shaking the market during the stock market volatility that increased on October 27, 2008 due to the financial crisis and the subsequent plunge in stock prices.
Regarding this, he said, “It is true that I made a lot of money through futures options investment, but rumors such as making 1 trillion won or shaking up the market are completely false.
“I currently invest most of my cash in government bonds and rarely invest in futures. However, as I have lived a secluded life for a long time without attracting attention from others, absurd rumors continue to spread and grow, so I am considering taking legal action against them,” he said.
--- p.306 From "Super Catfish Seon Kyung-rae, Who Earned 1 Trillion Won"

In Myeongdong, there are many businesses that do private loan business, both officially and unofficially.
According to private lenders, these businesses sometimes operate independently, but they are often closely connected and work together on projects.
In this process, a hierarchy is naturally formed among the loan sharks.
A kind of pyramid system is also being organized in the private loan market in Myeongdong.

He said that there are four evangelists at the top of this pyramid.
They include Chairman Park, whom he served, Chairman Lee, Chairman Hwang, and Chairman Bang.
They were completely unknown to the general public, and neither investigative agencies nor financial institutions had a clear understanding of their identities.
Even among the loan sharks in Myeongdong, novice or small-scale ones are unaware of the true nature of these four individuals. Only the wealthy loan sharks who have frequently collaborated with them over the years are aware of their existence, to the extent that they operate completely behind a veil.

The Myeongdong loan shark market is structured with four loan sharks, each of whom has dozens of medium-sized loan sharks.
The four members are native Myeongdong residents who operate in Myeongdong, but among the mid-sized Jeonju groups, there are many who operate in offices in Gangnam and other places other than Myeongdong.

--- p.324 From “Transformation of Private Loan Businesses Dreaming of Market Expansion”