Reborn in Tokyo: From Heiress to Global Tycoon

Chapter 293 Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical

Just as Ayako finished speaking.

"Bang."

The carved wooden door to the salon was pushed open somewhat roughly from the outside.

A girl stumbled in.

Yuki Yamanouchi.

Her father is the president of Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. This company has been deeply involved in the research and development of cardiovascular and urinary system drugs for more than a decade, and holds several fundamental patents that are quite significant in the industry. It is a well-established medical enterprise.

But at this moment, Yuki had completely lost the dignity of a wealthy heiress. Her school uniform skirt was noticeably wrinkled, and her hair was somewhat disheveled. Her eyes were swollen and red, and there were still tear stains on her face.

The students in the salon turned around and looked at her disheveled appearance, but no one asked her anything.

"Miss Saionji... Miss Saionji..."

Yuki murmured Satsuki's name repeatedly, clearly having somehow learned that Satsuki had come to the school.

She looked around the room.

When her gaze fell upon Satsuki, who was sitting on the main sofa, a faint glimmer of light suddenly appeared in her eyes, which had been filled with despair and emptiness, as if she had grasped at a straw.

She rushed to Satsuki.

Knees bent.

Yuki knelt down directly beside the coffee table in front of Satsuki. She lowered her head deeply, her forehead almost touching the edge of the marble coffee table.

"Saionji-kun...please help me."

Yuki's voice trembled violently, and tears streamed down her cheeks onto the carpet.

"After the Ministry of Finance issued the order to cut off loans, major banks froze all of Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical's accounts. My father had previously invested in a land reclamation project in Chiba Prefecture to expand the new factory. Now that project has completely collapsed, and the funds cannot be withdrawn."

She gripped the hem of her skirt tightly.

"In order to prevent the loss of R&D staff and to pay the lab salaries, my father secretly borrowed money from loan sharks in the Kanto Gokudo region without the board's knowledge."

"Now, with interest compounding, that money has become an astronomical figure! This morning, the yakuza produced a legally binding mortgage contract, threatening to bring people to seize Musashino's core laboratory tomorrow and take all those incubators and centrifuges to pay off the debt!"

Yuki raised her tear-streaked face and looked up at Satsuki.

She knew that in this school, and even in all of Tokyo, only the Saionji family still held a huge cash flow.

"Saionji-kun..."

Yuki's voice was broken and fragmented.

"I know this request is unreasonable... but right now, in all of Tokyo, only the Saionji family can come up with this amount of cash..."

She lowered her head even further, pressing her forehead firmly against the edge of the coffee table.

"Please... could you lend Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical some bridge financing? We're willing to accept any interest rate..."

"As long as we can preserve the equipment in the lab and the fruits of my grandfather's labor... once the real estate project is resolved, we will definitely repay you with interest!"

The air inside the salon seemed to freeze.

The other students turned to look, their eyes filled with shock and sympathy, but no one uttered a sound. Everyone held their breath, staring at the girl sitting in the main seat.

Satsuki picked up the cup of red tea in front of her.

She did not immediately respond to Yuki's pleas.

Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical.

Patent for cardiovascular drugs.

These two terms flashed through her mind and were quickly applied to her self-defined "CTRPS acquisition model".

Possessing core pharmaceutical patents meets the T (Technology Barrier) criteria; facing bankruptcy due to high-interest loan sharks and even the threat of having its laboratory emptied by shady physicists, meets the P (Price) criteria; and given its current predicament, it has ample room to carry out R (Restructuring possible) operations.

It fully meets the harvesting standards.

Moreover, the prey came to them willingly.

Satsuki gently placed the teacup back on the saucer. She smiled as she looked at the trembling prey before her.

"Yamanouchi-san."

She looked into Yuki's eyes.

"The reason why Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical has fallen to this state is due to your father's greed."

Yuki stood there, stunned, tears clinging to her eyelashes.

"As the president of a pharmaceutical company, he was greedy for huge profits in real estate and invested the core funds that were the lifeline of the company into a land reclamation project that was already insolvent. After the funding dried up, instead of cutting his losses in time, he resorted to usury to quench his thirst."

Satsuki bent down slightly and gently wiped away Yuki's tears with a handkerchief.

"He treated researchers' salaries and the company's future as chips at the gambling table. This is shortsighted and derelict in the face of the most basic business common sense."

"The person involved must bear the consequences of such a fatal mistake."

She sat up straight.

"The Saionji family will not pay for such foolish business decisions, and we do not provide any form of charitable loans."

Yuki's body swayed violently.

The glimmer of hope that had just ignited in her eyes slowly dimmed. She seemed to have all her strength drained away, collapsing onto the carpet, her whole body trembling uncontrollably.

What should I do now? Is there anyone else who can lend money to the family?

Without money, the lab will be emptied by the yakuza tomorrow. Those debt collectors will move into her house. She will lose everything.

The image of gangsters kicking down her door with baseball bats kept replaying in her mind.

Yuki clutched the fabric of her uniform tightly to her chest, opened her mouth as if to beg the other person again, even just to say one more word. But the air in her lungs seemed to have been sucked out in an instant, and her vocal cords were so stiff that she couldn't produce a single vibration.

Tears streamed down her face, landing on the carpet, but she couldn't even muster the strength to utter a sob. Only one thought remained in her mind: it's all over.

At this moment, Satsuki spoke again.

"but."

Satsuki leaned back in the leather chair.

"An offshore healthcare fund registered in the Cayman Islands has a long-term interest in several cardiovascular patents underlying Yamanouchi Pharmaceuticals."

Yuki suddenly raised her head.

"This fund can step in. With full US dollar cash, before sunrise tomorrow, they can buy out the bad debts in the bank for Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical, as well as the high-interest loan mortgage contract in the hands of the Yakuza."

"They will protect all the equipment in the lab, as well as the core technical staff."

Yuki's breathing became rapid, and she crawled to Satsuki's feet on all fours.

"Really? You...they're willing..."

"However, the conditions for the merger are stringent."

Satsuki looked at Yuki.

"All the debt acquired by the fund will be converted into equity in Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical."

"Your father must relinquish 100% control. He must sign an agreement relinquishing all management decisions within the company and permanently withdrawing from the board of directors."

The salon remained deathly silent.

Yuki stood frozen in place.

Although she was an innocent student, she understood the weight behind those words.

Relinquishing control means that Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical, a family business passed down through three generations, will completely change hands. Her father's life's work and the Yamanouchi family's proud reputation will become someone else's spoils the moment she signs the papers.

Yuki looked up at Satsuki sitting opposite her. That familiar school uniform offered no room for compromise regarding their friendship in this merger.

but.

Images flashed through Yuki's mind of yakuza members smashing things in the house with baseball bats. She also saw her father's despairing face.

Compared to preserving so-called family control, the lives and personal safety of family members are the most real and urgent needs right now. What's the point of guarding those empty laboratories if they're all dead?

Those stubborn old presidents would rather commit seppuku than give up their shares.

But she didn't want that. Losing her wealth was certainly painful, but what she wanted even more was for her family to be healthy.

Yuki bit her lower lip so hard that it almost drew a little blood.

Tears welled up in her eyes again.

"I...I understand."

Yuki's voice trembled as she lowered her head deeply.

"I will go back...and persuade my father to sign the debt-to-equity swap agreement."

Satsuki nodded slightly.

She opened her black handbag and pulled out a pure white business card.

The business card contained no extra titles or company logos, only a contact number for the overseas legal representative.

She placed the business card on the edge of the coffee table.

"Have your father call this number before 9 p.m. tonight. A professional legal team will then verify the debt details with him."

Yuki reached out her trembling hands and picked up the light, white business card.

She clutched the business card tightly in her palm, then knelt down and knelt in a dogeza position, pressing her forehead deeply into the wool rug beside the marble coffee table.

"Thank you... Saionji-kun."

Yuki's voice was trembling with tears, yet it conveyed heartfelt gratitude.

"Thank you for stepping in and buying out those debts... giving our family a way out."

She wiped away her tears with the back of her hand, stood up by supporting herself on the carpet, bowed deeply to Satsuki again, and then stumbled out of the salon.

The carved wooden door slowly closed behind her.

Satsuki picked up her teacup and looked at the amber-colored tea inside.

This is a campaign to harvest domestic non-performing assets.

In the greenhouse of this campus, in a whim.

It was perfectly natural that he took the first blood.

……

……

……

Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical, which appears in this chapter, was one of Japan's top research-oriented pharmaceutical companies in the 1990s (later merged with Fujisawa Pharmaceutical in 2005 to become the current global pharmaceutical giant Astellas Pharma), holding highly commercially valuable underlying patents for urinary system and cardiovascular drugs.

During the frenzy of Japan's bubble economy, a very common social phenomenon existed: many technologically advanced companies, like Yamanouchi, established financial subsidiaries in pursuit of short-term profits, engaging in financial speculation and real estate investment. When the Ministry of Finance issued the "General Regulation" to cut off credit, these companies' cash flow was instantly disrupted due to land speculation, and their massive debts directly backfired, jeopardizing the survival of their core businesses.

This was the root cause of the large number of "high-quality non-performing assets" at the time—the companies' main businesses were still making money, but they were forced to face bankruptcy liquidation due to blindly increasing leverage to speculate on real estate. This was also the best way for the Saionji family to take advantage of the situation and cross-industry acquisition of core technological barriers at extremely low cost.