HYBE officially acquire Lee Soo Man’s stake in SME, release open letter talking up their similarities

HYBE has released an open letter from CEO Park Ji Won, addressed to fans, artists, employees, and shareholders of SM Entertainment, informing them that they’ve finalized their purchase of Lee Soo Man‘s 14.8% stake in the company and are now their largest shareholder (SME’s internal war recap here).

OPEN LETTER TO FANS, ARTISTS, EMPLOYEES, AND SHAREHOLDERS OF SM ENTERTAINMENT pic.twitter.com/CsxqAmopFy

— HYBE OFFICIAL (@HYBEOFFICIALtwt) February 22, 2023

There’s a lot of corporate speak to sift through, but basically they’re stressing that they have a “mutual corporate philosophy” and talk about their shared vision, insist that SME will retain autonomy, and that HYBE will push SME artists on the global stage. They also basically shade the Align Partners and Lee Sung Soo side of the company as people causing ‘confusion’ and ‘uncertainty’.

Amazingly, they have their own “pink blood” weirdly eugenic corporate branding phrase by referring to their “DNA”. Gotta love the corporations themselves encouraging that mindset from fandoms.

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Anyway, this is basically for the minority shareholders that they no doubt want to consolidate on their side. That’s really what this whole thing is about, even if it’s hilariously petty at times.

But still, the primary entertainment for me is not anything shareholders give a single fuck about. Rather, it’s knowing that some company stans have literally poured their souls into arguing that their favorite corporation is different and special for fucking years now, and now they’re uniting with the other side and making the obvious public: they share the same ideals and values (of extracting every dime of value from you, me, and their employees). I’m just here for the cope, man.