Kakao's acquisition of SM hits a snag due to Lee Soo Man's demands
Negotiations for Kakao's acquisition of SM Entertainment are in the final stages but have hit a snag. This is because Kakao is displeased with the additional conditions proposed by SM Executive Producer Lee Soo Man.
Producer Lee Soo Man is said to have also requested a substantial salary. It is analyzed that this is related to the profits that this producer earned through Like Planning. Like Planning, the producer's personal company received royalty fees of 24 billion KRW (~19.6 million USD) from SM Entertainment last year. An IB industry official said, "If Kakao Entertainment acquires SM, it is difficult to give Like Planning the same level of work as it is now, so it seems that they requested a salary increase to compensate for this." Kakao put the contract on hold and continued to negotiate additional terms and conditions proposed by Producer Lee.
so basically it seems like LSM ahjussi, the creator of whole SM Ent, seeing that world is changing thought that we is loosing power in SM (because he only has 18% of shares, and 82% is spread in other various shareholders) decided to set up some backup plan, personally created Like Planning, and made SM Entertainment pay his company flippin 20M USD in just one year lol...
and now he wants to clinge to this money and keep it going, and it's obvious that no new 'normal' owner would allow such things to happen
