HYBE, home to BTS, is now the largest shareholder of SM Entertainment, home to EXO and NCT. See the article for more details, and how HYBE artists stans and Pink Bloods are reacting on this.
HYBE Becomes Biggest Shareholder of SM Entertainment After Purchasing Lee Soo Man's 14.8% Shares
On February 10, HYBE, the current biggest K-pop agency led by Bang Si Hyuk (popularly known as Bang PD), confirmed that it officially signed a contract to acquire 14.8% of the shares owned by major shareholder Lee Soo Man.
BoA Reveals Bang Si Hyuk Did Something for Her During SM Entertainment's Dark DaysNews 1
The founder of SM Entertainment Lee sold his shares for 422.8 billion KRW (approximately 334 million USD). With this, HYBE became the largest shareholder of SM Ent.
In addition to this, it was also reported that Bang Si Hyuk is also planning to make a tender offer in March to acquire an additional 25% stake in SM Entertainment. This will be bought from minor SM shareholders. HYBE stated:
"All procedures such as financing for tender purchases have already been completed."
If the transaction will be successful, HYBE will own 39.8% of SM Entertainment.
Earlier, it was revealed by Korean media outlets that Lee Soo Man himself turned to Bang Si Hyuk to sell his stake at a premium after losing his influence on the SM board. The two representative K-pop leaders then formed a consensus that seek to provide solutions for expanding their global businesses.
HYBE logo (News1)
HYBE's acquisition of SM's 1.48% shares took back the position of being a major shareholder from Kakao, who on the 7th secured a 9.05% stake in SM by acquiring 1.23 million new shares issued by SM in the form of a third-party allocation paid-in capital increase.
To become the largest shareholder, they purchased additional 1.14 million shares (based on the conversion of ordinary shares) through the acquisition of convertible bonds.
The total amount of the stake acquisition is 217.152 billion won. (173 million USD). In the process, Kakao became the second-largest shareholder of SM.
How HYBE vs SM Stans Are Reacting
Following this news, K-pop fans expressed various reactions to the reports that HYBE acquired SM.
Although plenty of stans are skeptical regarding the decision, fandoms NCTzens (NCT), ARMYs (BTS) and EXO-Ls (EXO) are in the middle of hilarious banter by exchanging memes on the Twitterverse.
As the aforementioned boy groups are known for their fandoms' "bad blood," fans find it funny to know that in the future, the possibility of seeing them work with each other seems narrower.
A Twitter meme account also made fun of the difference between SM and HYBE artists' vocals, emphasizing that the quality of the SM group's voice is higher than of the latter.
Contrary to boy groups stans under both agencies, girl group supporters MYs (aespa) and FEARNOTs (LE SSERAFIM) are actually excited about a potential collaboration of the two artists.
Over Twitter, related words and phrases - "SMTOWN," "Big 3," "SMEnt," "Bang PD," "Hybe," "Label SJ," "Yixing," "Suho," "Junmyeon," and more - dominated the app's trends.
How about you? What are your thoughts on this matter? Tell us in the comments!
