Chapter 333: Withdrawal of Investment
S.M. Entertainment, Chairman's Office.
Jiang Shu placed the contract down, his eyes flickering.
"Kakao Entertainment has completed the 1.2 trillion korean won financing from the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Singapore's GIC, which is in preparation for the acquisition of S.M. Entertainment."
Jiang Shu's words did not surprise Li Xiuman; it was normal for Jiang Shu to discern such information.
"So, do you think Kang Wentai's matter is related to Kakao Entertainment?"
"It doesn't matter anymore." Jiang Shu shook his head, "For something like this to happen at this point in time, whether it was done by Kakao Entertainment or not, we can treat it as if it was."
In business, when you don't know who did something, you just need to see who benefits the most.
Now, during the period when Li Xiuman was preparing to leave, as one of the competitors, the sudden family scandal involving DM Entertainment's administrative director made it hard not to think of conspiracy theories.
To this day, Jiang Shu has not obtained concrete evidence to prove that this incident was man-made and not Kang Wentai's son's own actions.
But having this suspicion is enough.
The timing is too coincidental; even if it wasn't man-made, it would be treated as such.
"Are you going to retaliate?" Li Xiuman looked at Jiang Shu and asked curiously.
"This is Kakao Entertainment." Jiang Shu gave Li Xiuman a strange look, "In Kakao Entertainment's eyes, our DM Entertainment is just a slightly larger ant. Me going to retaliate against it?"
It felt like telling a small local business to retaliate against Tencent.
"Then what are you going to do next?"
Jiang Shu pondered for a moment.
"Help me contact the people from Kakao Entertainment; I want to talk to the person responsible for their acquisition of S.M. Entertainment shares."
"The person in charge of this matter is the co-representative, Kim Sung-soo. I can call him over right now," Li Xiuman said to Jiang Shu.
"Then call him. Let's finalize this matter while we're at it." Jiang Shu didn't intend to drag it out any longer; he wanted to quickly extract enough benefits from the S.M. Entertainment quagmire and then retreat behind the scenes.
"Alright."
...
In October, a piece of news circulated among the industry's upper echelons.
S.M. Entertainment Chairman Li Xiuman planned to transfer his shares to board member Director Jiang Shu, but the board raised objections.
Subsequently, through board negotiations led by Li Xiuman, interested competitors in acquiring Li Xiuman's S.M. Entertainment shares were brought together. After three rounds of discussions, in the final round, strong competitor Kakao Entertainment and Jiang Shu held the final negotiations. Afterward, Li Xiuman, Jiang Shu, and Kakao Entertainment signed a tripartite agreement: 10.2% of Li Xiuman's 23.9% shares were transferred to Jiang Shu, 4% were divided among other board members and competitors, and Kakao Entertainment took the remaining shares.
With this, Jiang Shu, by acquiring 10.2% of the shares, increased his equity to 10.8%, instantly becoming the second-largest shareholder of S.M. Entertainment. The largest shareholder, with 9.7% of the shares, became Kakao Entertainment.
Thus, Kakao Entertainment completed its control over S.M. Entertainment. However, Jiang Shu, as the second-largest shareholder, did not insert any positions or personnel within S.M. Entertainment, merely retaining his seat on the board, with no other changes.
Conversely, Kakao Entertainment, after gaining control of S.M. Entertainment, immediately implemented drastic reforms to S.M. Entertainment's existing employee system and replaced nearly one-fifth of its middle and high-level executives.
If not for considering the company's operational issues, the number of people laid off would have been even greater.
Neither Li Xiuman nor Jiang Shu concerned themselves with the aftermath of Kakao Entertainment taking over S.M. Entertainment.
The former was busy packing up his assets to flee, while the latter was...
JYP Entertainment, President's Office.
Zheng Xu frowned slightly as he watched Choi Ji-yeon, who was reviewing documents in front of him.
Just ten minutes ago, Choi Ji-yeon suddenly visited JYP Entertainment, specifically asking to see him.
Upon arrival, she said nothing but immediately requested to see NMIXX's files. As the company with half of NMIXX's operational rights, Choi Ji-yeon, as the Director Choi, certainly had the right to see these files.
The secretary is not important; a secretary, even a Director Choi like Choi Ji-yeon, is only considered mid-level in the company's management hierarchy.
But you cannot just look at her position; you also need to look at her authority.
The Director Choi is the person who has the most contact with the chairman. You cannot be sure whether the words she speaks are her own intentions or the chairman's intentions.
In other words, when the chairman is present, she is a secretary. But when the chairman is not present, she is the chairman.
Now, Choi Ji-yeon's sudden visit to JYP Entertainment to request NMIXX's files made Zheng Xu begin to wonder.
What does Jiang Shu want to do?
Fortunately, before he could delve deeper into his thoughts, Choi Ji-yeon had already put down the documents in her hand.
"The 'Begin Again' project has already started, but JYP Entertainment doesn't seem to have done much pre-promotion for this variety show?" Choi Ji-yeon looked at Zheng Xu and asked.
"It's a variety show produced by DM Entertainment; it's always inconvenient for us at JYP Entertainment to interfere," Zheng Xu said with a smile.
Why should our JYP Entertainment promote your DM Entertainment's variety show?
Choi Ji-yeon nodded at his words.
"I'm here on behalf of the company this time. We hope to take back Wu Haiyuan's personal contract."
Zheng Xu couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at her words.
Isn't DM Entertainment not very interested in NMIXX? Otherwise, they wouldn't have left the entire NMIXX at JYP Entertainment; at the very least, they would have co-owned them like Red Velvet and aespa.
"That's not possible. Our personal contract with Wu Haiyuan has not yet expired," Zheng Xu refused.
The most valuable personal contract in NMIXX is Wu Haiyuan's. Based on her current commercial value, she alone is worth more than the other five.
Although JYP Entertainment's main strategy has always been to promote Zhang Guizhen, DM Entertainment clearly favors Wu Haiyuan more.
Among other things, both "Work Idol" and "Begin Again" variety shows were given to Wu Haiyuan. While the former, a variety show requiring entertainment sense, was given to her, the latter, a music variety show, was not given priority to Lily, who was originally a DM Entertainment artist, but to Wu Haiyuan. This explains the situation.
"President Zheng, don't make things difficult for me," Choi Ji-yeon said, feigning difficulty. "The chairman gave me a strict order to get back Wu Haiyuan's personal contract."
"Director Choi, don't make things difficult for me either," Zheng Xu said with a smile. "We agreed before that all personal contracts except Lily's would go to our JYP Entertainment. Now you want to take the personal contracts back..."
"Alright." Choi Ji-yeon sighed helplessly, "Then it seems we can only withdraw from NMIXX."
Zheng Xu: "???"
Zheng Xu's pupils constricted, and his gaze towards Choi Ji-yeon also changed slightly.
"Director Choi, what do you mean by that...?"
Choi Ji-yeon sighed again, but in Zheng Xu's eyes, Choi Ji-yeon was completely acting.
What does DM Entertainment want to do?