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HYBE founder Bang Si-hyuk has opened up about its battle in opposition to Kakao to amass shares of Okay-pop company SM Entertainment.
Today (March 15), Bang delivered a keynote speech on the Gwanhun Forum, hosted by the Gwanhun Club, an affiliation of senior journalists in Korea. Held on the Korean Press Center in Seoul, South Korea, the discussion board supplied attendees the chance to realize perception into Bang and HYBE’s imaginative and prescient of the Okay-pop business.
During a Q&A session on the occasion, Bang opened up about HYBE’s current try to amass SM Entertainment, and its battle in opposition to South Korean web big Kakao over the Okay-pop company. Bang claimed that HYBE had been toying with the acquisition concept since no less than 2019, noting that there have been two different makes an attempt earlier than the latest occasions.
“Since 2019, HYBE has been putting its finger on acquiring SM Entertainment. HYBE made offers twice but was rejected,” he mentioned, per Daum, as translated by Koreaboo. “There was both support and opposition internally regarding the acquisition.”
Bang then famous that following the 2 failed acquisitions, in addition to inside disagreements on the route of the corporate, he had determined that “we need to look towards the future… and so, we [moved away] from an acquisition [back then]”.
The HYBE founder then went on to say that their most up-to-date bid to amass SM Entertainment got here after Bang was contacted personally by SM founder Lee Soo-man. “He asked me about my thoughts on acquiring stocks and many of the factors that were against the acquisition of SM Entertainment had gone away then,” Bang mentioned. “I thought that [the acquisition] was alright at that moment, so I agreed to it.”
Bang then spoke about how the “competitive and overheated battle” in opposition to Kakao for the Okay-pop company was not one which he had anticipated, calling it “a war that messed up the order of the market and damaged the shareholders’ value”.
Earlier this week, HYBE introduced that it will drop its bid to amass SM Entertainment, following a dialogue with Kakao the place the 2 corporations caught a deal to “cooperate on matters related to their platforms”.