HYBE introduced Monday (Sept. 17) {that a} dozen solo artists and music teams on the SM Entertainment roster will be part of its international fan neighborhood platform, Weverse, in September. Those artists, who haven’t but been named, will transfer to Weverse from SM’s personal fan neighborhood platform, Kwangya Club.
In addition to connecting with followers by way of providers together with Weverse Live, the 12 SM artists may even be featured on the e-commerce platform Weverse Shop, the place followers should buy albums and official merchandise.
The Weverse deal derives from a platform partnership struck between HYBE, SM and Kakao Entertainment in March after HYBE fell in need of its mission to buy a controlling stake in SM. HYBE, residence to Okay-pop superstars BTS, was blocked in its efforts by rival bidder Kakao, a South Korean tech firm that owns Monsta X‘s label Starship Entertainment and Korean music streaming platform Melon. The battle ended when HYBE agreed to promote its complete SM stake to Kakao; days later, it bought 1.66 million SM shares to Kakao for 248.8 billion gained ($191.8 million), amounting to 44% of its whole shares within the firm and growing the stake of Kakao Corp. and its subsidiary, Kakao Entertainment, to almost 40%. HYBE retains an 8.8% stake in SM.
Later in March, SM appointed Jang Cheol-hyuk as the corporate’s new CEO, succeeding outgoing CEO Lee Sung-soo, and named a brand new board as the corporate vowed to enhance company governance and its manufacturing system, which had fallen behind rivals like HYBE lately and led to investor scrutiny.
Weverse claims roughly 65 million subscribers throughout 245 nations and areas globally.
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