Whats up.
Final Thursday (July 24), Music Enterprise Worldwide posted an correct story masking three people being sentenced for insider buying and selling in South Korea.
The article in query cited and credited a report from Korea JoongAng Every day – the English version of the South Korean nationwide every day newspaper, JoongAng Ilbo.
It acknowledged that three folks affiliated with HYBE – reported by JoongAng Every day as two ex-employees plus one worker of a subsidiary – had been convicted of insider buying and selling in Korea.
The trio was discovered to have benefited from privileged information concerning BTS’s official affirmation of their “hiatus” — as a consequence of navy enlistment — in June 2022.
The correction that wasn’t a correction
After publishing our story, late on Thursday GMT (July 24), MBW was contacted by Los Angeles-based Tag PR, aka The Company Group PR LLC, with an pressing correction request.
Tag PR acknowledged (bolding and underlining as obtained): “Clarification: Not one of the three registered officers have been former HYBE staff. Just one particular person was identified to be an acquaintance of Chairman Bang Si-Hyuk.”
Related element: The Company Group LLC was majority-acquired by HYBE final 12 months, with the American arm of HYBE — then run by Scooter Braun — reportedly shopping for a 51% stake within the PR firm.
After being contacted by HYBE-owned Tag PR, MBW duly up to date our story with its assertion; we famous that HYBE (through its majority-owned subsidiary) had “strongly denied” that any ex-employees had been sentenced within the insider buying and selling conviction.
Then issues… took a flip.
Early on Friday morning (July 25), HYBE’s Seoul-based world head of communications, Rachel Um, contacted us through e mail to concern a correction… to the correction MBW obtained from Tag PR the day gone by.
This e mail from HYBE HQ learn: “Relating to [MBW’s] piece from yesterday, it’s confirmed that the three people addressed have been all former HYBE staff as they have been charged with insider buying and selling. That they had all left HYBE by then. Whereas they did work at HYBE, that they had no private connections with Chairman Bang.”
HYBE blamed “human error” for Tag PR’s inaccurate request to right MBW’s article with false info.
So, to reiterate:
- The three people sentenced for insider buying and selling did all, sooner or later, really work for HYBE (as MBW reported within the first place).
- HYBE says, formally, none of them have been acquaintances of Chairman Bang (which MBW by no means prompt within the first place).
The relevance of accuracy on this matter, particularly by way of the people’ connection (or lack of) to HYBE founder Chairman Bang Si-Hyuk, shall be of great significance to HYBE shareholders.
Bang Si-Hyuk and three separate HYBE staff have been lately referred to Korean prosecutors in a special investigation of alleged “unfair buying and selling”, related to the corporate’s 2020 IPO. (Once more: this investigation is unrelated to the BTS insider buying and selling case; the three staff in every matter differ.)
HYBE says it’s “totally cooperating with native authorities, together with the monetary regulators and the police,” within the Chairman Bang prosecutorial investigation.
MBW is conscious we’re learn carefully by HYBE buyers and analysts, and thought it finest to be as clear as attainable on final week’s occasions. Therefore this letter.
You’ll be able to learn our (twice up to date) protection on the BTS insider buying and selling conviction right here.Music Enterprise Worldwide
