Chapter 293: Afternoon Tea

Around three in the afternoon, the doorbell of the Kishimoto house rang. So Rie Sakai reflexively went to open the front door. Mr. and Mrs. Oda personally paid a visit to the door with a watermelon. Today’s afternoon tea was something that had been arranged at the Hashimoto family’s party last night.

Sakai Rie stepped aside to allow the couple to enter the house, while receiving the watermelon that Mrs. Onada handed to her.

After the door closed automatically, she slightly accelerated her steps and took three steps to the front, rushing to Masayoshi Kishimoto, who was still seated on the living room sofa, and said, “Professor Onoda and his wife are here.”

Masayoshi Kishimoto was still teasing Little A and Little B, but then he stopped. He stood up and looked toward the Onada couple, saying politely, “Welcome, welcome.”

“Chatter.” Professor Onoda stopped his steps and stood upright, bowing slightly towards the other man and said.

“You’re just too polite. Come over here and sit.” Masayoshi Kishimoto said calmly.

Mr. and Mrs. Onoda walked over to the couch in the large living room and settled down in front of and behind each other. Afterward, Masayoshi Kishimoto similarly resumed his seat.

Sakai Rie picked up the watermelon and went straight to the kitchen. One by one, she took out the black tea that had been prepared long ago, as well as the pastries and fruits that she had bought from outside, and arranged them on top of the crystal coffee table to entertain the guests.

“Professor Oda, Chairman, if you guys aren’t used to drinking English black tea, I’ll give you freshly ground Brazilian coffee.” Sakai Rie smiled.

“No need to go to too much trouble. You’ll make our couple embarrassed and never dare to come to your place again.” Mrs. Oda completely lost the arrogance of a medical family in the past and said.

As soon as Rie Sakai sat down, Masayoshi Kishimoto said bluntly, “If there is something, there is no harm in saying it.”

“I’ve heard that Hard Gold Capital in Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Hard Gold Group. It is also quite famous in the industry.” Prof. Oda suddenly sat up straight and said.

“The current president of Hard Gold Capital is Kiyoshi Kobayashi. If you have any business or projects, you can absolutely talk to him.” Masayoshi Kishimoto wasn’t shrugging it off, but positively gave a positive reply saying.

“Oda Hospital has expanded too much in the early stages, resulting in financial difficulties in its operations now.” Prof. Onoda felt that looking for the president was not as useful as looking for the chairman, so he roughly mentioned it.

“Prof. Onoda, I think you don’t understand what Hard Gold Capital actually does? It’s an investment company, dedicated to making investments, not loans.

If you need funds for a turnaround, you should be looking for a bank loan, not an investment company.” Justice Kishimoto said nonchalantly.

“The major banks, I’ve already paid them a personal visit. They feel that the risk to the Onada Hospital is too high and will no longer offer us a loan.”

Prof. Oda knew that this kind of thing could not be hidden from the other party at all. Instead of trying to save face, he should just tell the truth.

“In theory, the fixed assets of Onada Hospital such as the building and the land can be completely mortgaged to the bank in exchange for a loan. Unless, of course, Onada Hospital has already been mortgaged a long time ago.” Masayoshi Kishimoto said seriously.

“It is indeed as you say. We invested the loan we got from this one into the expansion of the hospital. It was expected that patients would increase in this regard, but instead, there has been a decrease.

The interest on the loan, the salaries of the medical staff, the maintenance of medical equipment, etc. is a huge expense.

The root cause of all this is the negative impact of the Asian financial turmoil. Even though it has been completely over for half a year, it has not allowed the Japanese economy to recover completely.

Even when they are sick, many people are able to fight it off and do not come to the hospital. I think that in another half a year or a year’s time, when Japan’s economy has picked up significantly, the number of people coming to the hospital will increase.” Prof. Oda said slowly.

Masayoshi Kishimoto didn’t believe him. He knew better than anyone else that the Asian financial turmoil that Japan had experienced had not hit it as hard as South Korea, but it had hurt its vitality to a certain extent.

Since then, Japan’s overall economy has been in a state of low growth for a long time. It was not until 2006 that Japan finally recovered fully.

However, just two years later, the global financial tsunami in 2008 caused Japan to suffer a considerable negative impact.

When the economy is not doing well and there is no growth, the real example in the life of the society is the difficulty in employment, the decrease instead of the increase of salary, and the price of goods is still going up.

The reason why Japan is still experiencing slow economic growth and employment difficulties is that the driving force for growth comes from large companies rather than small and medium-sized companies, where most of the labor force is concentrated.

Large companies are bound to consider profitability when hiring people. So, they take the approach of directly reducing the employment of formal employees and switching to a large number of informal employees and dispatched employees.

Otherwise, they will outsource their non-core businesses in order to reduce costs. As a result, ordinary people have not been able to experience the actual feelings brought about by economic growth at all, and on the contrary, they feel that life has become more and more difficult.

They are afraid to go to the hospital even if they know they are sick. Even if Japan’s health care system is 30% out-of-pocket expenses and 70% reimbursement, it will still make these people with health insurance not dare to go to the hospital, after all, having a job today does not mean that they will not be dismissed tomorrow.

People, however, have to eat every day. Not only that, but they also need to pay for rent, utilities, etc. It’s really not a normal hardship for low and middle-income people living in Tokyo.

On this point, Kishimoto Masayoshi is completely have the right to speak, after all, Natsui Makoto’s past life is his best first-hand source of information.

After some silence, Masayoshi Kishimoto smiled without a care in the world and said, “Prof. Oda, do you mean that you want to give up part of the hospital’s equity in exchange for a capital investment?”

Prof. Onoda did not deny it saying, “That is exactly what I mean.”

“Don’t mind my straight talk. Nowadays, Oda Hospital’s business condition is poor, and I’m also afraid that it will be difficult to obtain much cash from the partial shares that are being ceded?

As any investment company or individual, they would not fail to consider that if Onada Hospital were to go bankrupt, not only would the money invested in it go down the drain, but they would also be held partially liable for the joint and several liabilities.

Even if you were to sell all of your shares in Onoda Hospital, it would be difficult to find a successor. Even if you do find one, it is extremely likely that the price will be drastically reduced.

How much debt does your hospital have? The only way to find out is to look at the hospital’s financial statements.

If you really want to keep the right to operate Onoda Hospital, the best way to do so is not to raise money from the outside, but to reinvest in real estate in your name.

I don’t have to tell you the risks involved. This is also the most feasible way. Other than that, it’s all particularly difficult in my opinion.

Moreover, Hard Gold Capital has not invested in a single healthcare-related project so far.

Moreover, medical project investment is not like other project investment. This is a matter of human life.” Justice Kishimoto said one thing.