Simply days after Kakao Corp formally grew to become SM Leisure’s largest shareholder, SM introduced a administration shakeup, selling Chief Monetary Officer Jang Cheol-hyuk as its new Chief Government Officer.

Jang succeeds outgoing CEO Lee Sung-soo. He was appointed throughout the firm’s assembly on Friday (March 31), the place the corporate additionally named new administrators who have been advisable by Kakao.

The brand new CEO doesn’t maintain any shares within the firm, in response to a inventory change submitting on Friday.

Jang joined SM in February 2022. Previous to becoming a member of SM, he held CFO roles at South Korean skincare and cosmetics producer Pores and skin Meals and at delivery firm, Donga Tanker, the submitting confirmed.

The change follows a months-long saga that got here to an in depth final week when Kakao received in its bid to accumulate a considerable stake in SM that prevented rival HYBE, the company behind BTS, to take management of SM Leisure.

Former CEO Lee Sung-soo had disclosed his plan to step down as CEO and from the corporate’s board as a director over a month in the past. Lee began working at SM as a part-timer, monitoring followers’ feedback and actions on the web, in response to Allkpop.

He later joined SM’s A&R department, gathering demos for what would turn into South Korean boy band Shinee’s debut album, the native newswire added.

Lee was amongst SM’s executives that opposed what they described as a “hostile takeover” by HYBE, and slammed his uncle Lee Soo-man’s “wrongful methods,” in response to a separate Allkpop report.

In the meantime, SM’s board appointed 5 new administrators, 4 of that are exterior administrators.

The brand new administrators are Kim Kyu-sik, Taehee Kim, Moon Keongbin, Lee Seungmin and Sung-moon Cho. The appointments took impact March 31, and their time period of workplace will run for 3 years, in response to a inventory change submitting.

Lee Soo-man, who nonetheless held a 3.8% stake within the firm, didn’t attend the overall assembly on Friday, in response to native media.

Nonetheless, SM’s founder addressed the change at SM, saying in a press launch to native media that “the curtains have closed down on one among many eras at the moment at SM Leisure, an organization based with my title as its initials.”

“The purpose at which music turns into one with the world should be the purpose the place music meets know-how, and the objective of that is essentially music’s contribution to making a sustainable world. The explanation I used to be capable of come to such a call as I offered my shares to chairman Bang Si Hyuk of HYBE was additionally as a result of I knew that we shared the identical imaginative and prescient when it got here to advancing music towards a sustainable world,” Lee Soo-man was quoted by Allkpop as saying.

Hyundai Motor Securities analyst Kim Hyun-yong stated retaining a stake in SM might enable HYBE to ‘include’ Kakao in the long term, Reuters reported final week.

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