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HYBE Buys Additional Stake in SM Entertainment from Founder Lee Soo-man

HYBE bought shares of aespa and NCT 127 label SM Entertainment worth $78M. The company purchased them from SM founder Lee Soo-man.

K-pop giant HYBE purchased 868,948 shares of SM Entertainment, the company behind such acts as aespa and NCT 127, for approximately 104.3 billion won ($78 million) after SM founder Lee Soo-man exercised an option to sell the shares, HYBE announced in a Feb. 28 regulatory filing. The purchase concludes a transaction that briefly created a power struggle in the fast-growing K-pop industry in South Korea. In March 2023, HYBE’s attempt to acquire a larger stake in SM Entertainment was later thwarted by Kakao, the Korean tech giant that owns K-pop record label Starship Entertainment as well as the South Korean music streaming app Melon and several media production companies.

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