It’s been a busy information week for HYBE, the leisure big behind Ok-pop stars like BTS and ENHYPEN.
The newest information to hit headlines around the globe is that the corporate’s places of work in Seoul had been raided by South Korean authorities on Thursday (Could 29).
Citing “judicial sources”, the Korea Occasions studies that the corporate’s headquarters had been searched as a part of an investigation into alleged insider buying and selling by a former govt.
That unnamed former exec allegedly made $176,500 by shopping for shares in rival Ok-pop firm YG Leisure’s subsidiary YG Plus, after studying that HYBE was planning to spend money on the inventory.
“We cooperated with the authorities in response to their request for info regarding the conduct of a former worker.”
HYBE spokesperson
A spokesperson for HYBE advised MBW in an announcement over e-mail that the corporate is complying with the authorities in South Korea.
“We cooperated with the authorities in response to their request for info regarding the conduct of a former worker,” they stated.
In a separate story this week, it was reported that the South Korean monetary watchdog, the Monetary Supervisory Service (FSS), is ramping up an investigation into HYBE’s Chairman Bang Si-hyuk over allegations surrounding agreements supposedly made with sure buyers and personal fairness funds forward of the corporate’s IPO in 2020.
This story was initially reported on the finish of 2024, however resurfaced this week within the Korea Financial Day by day with new alleged particulars. In response to the report, the FSS is conducting “a fast-tracked investigation into Bang’s transactions with the PEFs and plans to refer the case to prosecutors for potential felony prosecution”.
The Korea Financial Day by day studies that the FSS is now investigating the case over “unfair commerce practices,” having supposedly initially investigated it for “violations of securities report descriptions”.
The information outlet additionally studies that the Monetary Crime Investigation Unit of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Company is conducting a separate investigation into the case.
The Korea Financial Day by day cited a HYBE spokesperson as saying: “All transactions had been carried out inside authorized boundaries after going by way of a authorized overview.”
HYBE denied allegations of any wrongdoing when the preliminary story broke on the finish of 2024.
“Our firm offered the shareholder settlement in query to the IPO underwriters in the course of the itemizing preparation course of,” HYBE stated on the time.
MBW reached out to HYBE for touch upon these studies.
Elsewhere at HYBE this week, the corporate confirmed that it has opened an workplace in China, the world’s fifth-largest recorded music market.
Additionally, on Could 28, HYBE division in America divested Huge Machine Rock, the Nashville-based rock imprint of Huge Machine Label Group, promoting the label to Gebbia Media. (BMLG was acquired by Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings in 2019. The whole thing of Ithaca, together with BMLG and Braun’s SB Tasks, was then acquired by South Korea’s HYBE in 2021.)Music Enterprise Worldwide
