***BIGBANG'S GD renews with YG, Taeyang moves to Teddy's THEBLACKLABEL

Expecting some more announcements after the first of the year.

They'll come right after another.

I can see Daesung working with YG producers in the future. They know his voice.

His solo career success was in Japan. I can see him working with YGEX.

Just bumping to make sure this story stays factual and no false narratives get started by kpop fans.

This thread will be updated with actual news and facts and educated predictions based on evidence.

Quote from hammerstan

So when do they plan on going public? Are they going to wait until after their GG debuts (probably late 2023 or early 2024, considering they are still looking for one more member) to increase their IPO, or are they doing this to fund their GG before debut? Was the lack of releases this year designed to time comebacks to maximize the noise around the company during IPO (next year)?

They are clearly building up to something, with Somi as the host of MAMA and Teddy winning producer of the year on the show (with a 2min promo vid), followed immediately by an audition announcement for the last member of TBLGG. Now Taeyang, one of the biggest soloists in Korea, joins TBL.

Could they be waiting for Blackpink's contract renewal to announce at least one BP member joining TBL for her solo work? Is YG still going to manage BP's group work, similar to the Big Bang situation?

The CEO hire is the biggest sign they are going public next year. His expertise is not in entertainment but in attracting investment, which dispels the myth that entertainment company CEOs have anything to do with music or editorial decisions, Hwang Bokyung is certainly not deciding on when Baby Monsters is debuting, she's been an accountant and finance person her whole life.

The job of the new CEO of THEBLACKLABEL is to attract as much investment as possible and create as much value to the market as possible and make TBL label as attractive as possible. Much of this will be done during "the quiet phase" of fundraising capital...private meetings with investors and venture capitalist firms.

The new CEO and Teddy (he's the biggest owner of TBL just ahead of YGE) are going to these meetings and telling them the big plans of TBL...who they're signing, what they're releasing, who they're debuting. I pay a lot of attention to Korean investment forums and gossip. Knowing this group of people they're a lot like Kpop fans...they can't keep secrets, so we'll probably know a lot ahead of time. But they probably knew about Taeyang for a while before we did.

The first sign they were going public though is that in November of 2021 THEBLACKLABEL went from a subsidiary of YG to an "associated company" of YG...which just means YG went from majority owner to Teddy being majority owner and YG being 2nd.

I strongly believe Teddy will be Majority owner when it goes public, much like Yang Hyunsuk is of YGE...but YG and Naver will be the 2nd and 3rd largest stakeholders.

Loren being the Naver founder's son not withstanding, Naver owns a big portion of YG and YG and Naver own several businesses and joint ventures.

As far as BLACKPINK, I feel confident that they've already renewed with YG or are close enough that they feel confident. There are sources that I trust that are rarely wrong that feel confident about this.

Even though their contract isn't up until mid-year, they can still sign an "Agreement In Principle" but is a legal agreement and is not uncommon.