Min Hee-jin "I received 2 billion won in incentives last year, Park Ji-won received 1 billion won."

Min Hee-jin, CEO of Adore, revealed that she received 2 billion won in incentives from HYBE last year.

At 3 p.m. on the 25th, CEO Min Hee-jin held an emergency press conference and refuted HYBE's claims for 2 hours and 15 minutes. CEO Min attracted attention with his emotional appearance throughout, mentioning the real names of Hive employees and using profanity.

On this day, CEO Min appeared wearing a green Sprite T-shirt and a blue cap. Representative Min reacted angrily, saying, "I have already become a witch," and "HYBE is trying to kill me. Will it end when I die?"

“Do you think I am being treated well by HYBE?” he said. “I heard that I received 5 billion won in incentives last year, but I received 2 billion won. But Park Ji-won received 1 billion won. I’m not saying 2 billion is less, but Ji-won all had negative performance. “It’s 1 billion won, so I said, ‘If you get 1 billion won, I should get more,’ and ‘If it’s 0 won, it’s OK,’” he said, drawing attention.

CEO Min continued to downplay his own performance and claimed that HYBE had plagiarized him. Furthermore, he spent a considerable amount of time saying that there had been sabotage by HYBE even before New Jeans' debut.

Regarding the suspicion of usurping management rights, which is the core of this issue, CEO Min denied, saying, "I never planned, intended, or executed the usurpation of management rights." At the same time, he raised his voice and said, "I heard that I met someone to receive investment to usurp management rights. Please bring that person here."

CEO Min said, "There was a situation where I was pressured that I could never leave HYBE because of the contract between shareholders. Eyelet, a copy of New Genes, also appeared. I felt that they were trying to stop me and kill me." He added, "In that situation, I came out as if I was having fun as I imagined. “It’s a story that happened,” he claimed. However, some are criticizing the vague and light response to the specific circumstances surrounding the theft of management rights, which is the most important, by calling it 'the complaint of an office worker' or 'the complaint while playing among ourselves'.

At this press conference, CEO Min confessed that there was a conflict between HYBE and New Genes even before their debut. With the debut of New Genes in mind, promotional points such as 'HYBE's first girl group' and 'Min Hee-jin girl group' were allowed, but it is claimed that Source Music's Le Seraphim stole them. In addition, he raised his voice saying that even after that, he received unreasonable requests such as 'please stop promoting New Genes'. At the same time, he again claimed, “Aillet, who recently debuted, is also a copy of New Jeans.”

Min Hee-jin said, "I'm curious about the intention of selling Saddam by portraying it as something serious," and emphasized, "It's not that I betrayed HYBE, but HYBE betrayed me. It's a frame to suck up as much as it can and then press it down."

Representative Min's lawyer also argued that "usurpation of management rights is impossible in a situation where the stake is 80% (HYBE) versus 20% (CEO Min's side)." Another lawyer on CEO Min's side said, "Breach of trust is established when an act that undermines the company's value is committed, but we have not found any attempt to commit such an act or any attempt to carry out such an act."

On the other hand, HYBE said about CEO Min Hee-jin's press conference, "There are so many untrue contents that it is difficult to list them all," and added, "CEO Min misled the point by mixing viewpoints and distorted it with a unique refracted interpretation mechanism. “The facts were announced in a public place,” he said.

They also said, “We can refute all claims with evidence, but we decided not to mention them one by one because we judged it not worth responding to.”

HYBE said, “CEO Min should stop lying, such as saying ‘there was no offer to talk’ or ‘there was no response to emails,’ and return the information assets as requested and promptly respond to the audit,” adding, “He has already proven himself unqualified to be a manager. He urged him to resign as soon as possible for the normal management of Adore.

At the same time, he requested, “Please stop continuously mentioning New Genes’ parents as it is damaging to the artist’s value.”

Previously, HYBE reported that CEO Min had instructed management to 'develop a way to pressure HYBE to sell its share of Adore.' Accordingly, HYBE claims that Adore discussed ways to become independent from Hive with Newgenes.

HYBE submitted a complaint to the Yongsan Police Station in Seoul against CEO Min and Adore Vice President Shin, claiming that they had secured concrete facts and physical evidence showing that a plan to seize the management rights of Adore, a subsidiary led by CEO Min, had been established.


Choi Ji-ye, Ten Asia Reporter wisdomart@tenasia.co.kr