Do you think Bighit used GFriend for the IPO? Next would be Seventeen?

Quote from ratna_drew

For Gfriend, Soumu already being "eaten" by Bighit. In my opinion, Bighit never intended to focus on Gfriend, Seventeen. But rather the company was mainly wanted to focus on the company' IPO (Initial Price Offer) as public company. Before the company manager to acquire GF and SVT, the investors were skeptical about the price for IPO, because they thought Bighit depended too much on BTS. And BTS would soon be enlisted. TXT hasn't produced enough success story in term of recognition in kpop. With the acquisitions, Bighit chance for better IPO rose. The price for those 2 acquisitions are negligible compare to money raised from successul IPO.

Hence, after the IPO, Bighit doesn't need Soumu or GF anymore. GF itself is already 7 years old group. Maximum they can milk the group for another 3 years, but the problem is GF itself is barely part of top group. The group couldn't match up to TWICE, BLACKPINK or RED VELVET anymore or perhaps MAMAMOO, or worse the group is slowly left out by ITZY, IZONE (disband soon), EVERGLOW, GIDLE... etc.

Bighit as a company that produce BTS, with huge money that they raised, the company would surely want to create and to focus on new GG that has longer lifespan, which the company has better control over the image, and produce better legacy for Bighit's name in term of the origin of the creation.

What's next? Seventeen disband?

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Seventeen is making them a lot of money. Why would they want to disband them?

BH only needs BTS. Lets not kid ourselves.

I think it was a bit different situation with Soumu. Instead of being used for the IPO, it was the other way around. They may have used Gfriend and the Soumu knowhow with GG training as a reason to purchase it. Otherwise, it wouldn't look pretty with investors as it could have seen as a toxic asset. For future investors it only made sense if they used Soumu for proper GG projects than for sort term tactics like explained here.

It may be just a bro move between Soumu CEO and Bang PD. They may not have ill intend to Gfriend per se at that time, as they had proper support in 2020. Just a transaction between bros which is normal. However, after they finished whatever transaction this was intended to, they threw Gfriend under the bus. Again we don't know enough as situation may have changed in between the transaction till weeks prior renewing contract period.

So I dunno if it would be the same with Pledis. It doesn't seem like the same situation and there is no sign of that unless fans can bring stuff happening with their group that may not be visible to nonfans. It seems more of a legit purchase and Pledis had a reputation on par with companies like Starship and Cube (at the time rumors were BH would buy Cube as well).

People may bring up Glam to formulate some pattern, but this isn't really a good example as it is just one case and it had a scandal that is a proper justification for termination. BH seems to have other acts that were kept for a long time. Whatever narrative is being formulated, there is no clear pattern. We are just grasping at straws.

However, if something similar happens with Nu'est and Seventeen, sure it will become a clear modus operandi like SM has with not officially disbanding their groups.

big fish eat small fish and finish them

I've always thought that no company should go public unless they want their craft to suffer. Money greed hits hard every time and the company eventually ends up getting sucked into doing stock buybacks, lining the CEO pocket and reducing quality to free up more money to trade with.

Well, to my understanding BH bought companies to have diversification on their earnings, If I remember well, in 2019 like 90%+ of their profit came from bts. That's a big sum & not really a great situation to be in if we take in consideration a possible incoming hiatus or reduction in bts activities due to military service. This was a risk that many analyst mentioned when talking about their future IPO, so BH had to reduce their dependency in bts, hence their buying spree. In 2020 it was like 75-80% , thanks to their acquisitions the % was reduced but is still on the higher side. So if they make their sublabels disband their groups they just go back to square one, which doesn't make sense & will also generate distrust on their investors because their dependency in bts will increase.