KMedia reports on how HYBE acquired Ithaca:

At the end of last year, news that Scooter was selling Ithaca reached HYBE. Despite knowing of other potential buyers, Bang Sihyuk said without hesitation, "We must buy it." An M&A (Mergers & Acquisitions) team was formed immediately.

The team was led by Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) Lee Jae-sang, former marketing & advertising head at Hyundai Motors, with five others. The project was named "Odyssey", taken from Homer's epic poem, where King Odysseus returns to Ithaca after travelling for 10 years.

Chairman Bang, who knew Braun, tried to persuade him directly, accompanied by JP Morgan, global law firm Paul Hastings & Korean law firm Kim&Chang. Braun offered a selling price of over 1 trillion KRW at the negotiation table.

An official from investment banking (IB) industry said, "Considering Ithaca's EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, etc) was only KRW 26.2 billion last year, this is hard to accept." However, Bang immediately sent an OK sign. Ithaca's synergy with HYBE was most important, +

& how much Ithaca earns was secondary.

Ithaca had similar thoughts. Aside from money, they were attracted to the fact that this partnership would give them a partner in the global music industry.

Thus, it is a "mixing of blood" type deal. Stars such as JB, Ariana will be able to grow their influence in the Third World Market. HYBE has created the opportunity to utilize BTS' intellectual property rights (IP) in different ways.

Most importantly, the industry believes that Weverse will be the biggest beneficiary of this M&A. YouTube's top subscribed artists, #1 (JB), #3 (BTS), & #4 (Ariana) are all likely to be on Weverse together.

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Via: https://n.news.naver.com/article/015/0004525777