Shares of popular music group BTS’ South Korean agency HYBE fell nearly 10% this week after the company announced an audit of its ADOR label and plans to part ways with a famous producer, mastermind of the fashionable female group NewJeans.
HYBE said on Tuesday that it had “launched an audit” of ADOR to find out whether its boss and famous producer, Min Hee-jin, was plotting a split from the parent company, which holds 80% of the subsidiary’s shares. The agency wrote to Ms. Min to “demand her resignation,” said a HYBE official. When the South Korean press reported the dispute on Monday, HYBE’s stock price fell 7.81%, before losing another 1.18% on Tuesday.
Min Hee-jin, at the origin of numerous successes on the K-pop scene such as that of NewJeans, a female group which has been a hit since its creation two years ago, published a press release on Monday in which she describes the accusation of “stunning”. She also explains that tensions with HYBE began when she accused another subsidiary of the agency of copying NewJeans with the ILLIT group, also female.
HYBE finds itself in a delicate situation, because the dismissal of Ms. Min, nicknamed “the mother of NewJeans” due to the total control she exercises over the group, could put “the survival of the group in danger”, estimated with AFP Kim Do-hoon, journalist specializing in pop culture.
The agency’s action had already fallen in 2022 when BTS announced “a break” due to military service, compulsory in South Korea. Singer Jin is expected to be the first to perform his service in June.
K-pop BTS NewJeans Min Hee-jin
