First Time • Myoui Mina

FT 51

One specific thing Sana avoids in business partners were people who played dirty, especially when it was avoidable and unnecessary.

Which is why partnering with Kim Jennie in any shape or form was something Sana's board was adamantly against in the past when she became the one in control.

In fact, during Sana's time where she shadowed her father long before she took over the company, she was advised against making deals with the Kim's.

The best way to describe the Kim's was that they were like poisonous frogs: nice to look at, but not good to be in contact with. Especially in recent years where internal conflict was rising, and instability within the family was showing through the cracks.

It's not that the Minatozaki's simply didn't try working with them at all. In fact, it all started with a failed joint venture between the Minatozaki's and Kim's cosmetic subsidiary, one that was supposed to catapult the Kim's into international success and the Minatozaki's own legacy to be further established.

However, just when the legal processes and contacts were signed, instability quickly surfaced within the Kim's.

Kim Jennie's father, the current president and head of the board at that time, was suddenly hospitalised before meetings even began. This left Kim Jennie to be forcefully placed into his seat with advisors and a plate too full for her; she had to take action whether she was prepared or not.

Sana, at that time, was still shadowing her father, yet she had pull, huge amount of shares, and a final say in some decisions since she was the heiress.

She recalls getting into a tussle with Jennie, a disagreement about ethics, and refusal that possibly violated contract terms.

In the first place, the ones that would gain more from the join venture were the Kim's, and the Minatozaki's were aware of that. However, since the Kim's had an established cosmetic line, they were an ideal choice.

The Minatozaki's had offered to let the Kim's open the flagship store of their collaborative cosmetic store in their malls, requesting a three-floor boutique that reflected the luxury and extravagance of their family. However, Kim Jennie had refused saying that the cost and effort would far exceed the profit, citing building permits that would take time to obtain, and construction that would alter the entire structure of the mall that was not built for the boutique.

This was, of course, met with raised eyebrows. Kim Jennie, a young entrepreneur who was thrown into her father's seat so suddenly, was defying the Minatozaki's so openly.

Therefore Sana stepped in, offering that instead of multiple floors, multiple blocks of stores spread across a floor would suffice. However, this meant that some stores, including small businesses, would have to be relocated somewhere else.

Jennie initially agreed, but she had insisted that it would be ideal to simply terminate the contract of most unprofitable stores in their malls, and kick them out instead of a relocation.

Kim Jennie was cunning, too cunning even. Sana had thought that she herself was merciless when it came to treatment of staff, but she looked like a saint next to Jennie.

Sana was not pleased with this. This meant that they would have to go through illegal loopholes to kick out these stores with no clear safety net for these small businesses.

And because this was not a project contained just within the Minatozaki's, Sana had expressed concern over discretion, ethics, and the welfare of those staff members and small businesses.

Dealing with them just had a higher risk than reward, and the Minatozaki's were respected and established enough that they did not have to take risks anymore, therefore they paid the hefty contract termination fee with the Kim's, citing conflict of interest as the reason.