Extraordinary General Meeting Approves Merger Between JYP Entertainment And JYP

JYP Entertainment has published the results of their Extraordinary General Meeting regarding the merger between the publicly listed JYP Entertainment and the non listed JYP on the Korean Financial Supervisory Service’s DART Electronic Reporting System. The report states that the merger has been approved with the merger effective starting from October 17.

There were a lot of big words in that first paragraph so lets break it down a bit because this report has some juicy information, including how much each of their artists make for the company.

First a summary

• JYP Entertainment and JYP-Parent used to be separate companies responsible for separate artists
• They have decided to merge the two companies together under the “JYP Entertainment” banner
• They held an investor’s meeting to discuss the merger
• They have revealed that they plan to expand their business to include drama, movie production, tour packages, musicals and actors.
• They will also expand their business in Japan with the debut of a new boy band along with creating a new branch in Thailand
• They will also debut four new idol teams to increase their sales
• They have revealed that they expect gross sales of $51.3 million USD (Exchange rate at 1000 KRW to $0.92 USD) along with operating profits of approximately $10.1 million USD for the first year after the merger (2014). 
• This is a significant increase compared to their current financial performance
• The vote on the merger was held on September 13 and passed
• The merger will become effective on October 17 
• 2PM  made up a total of 79.1% of JYP’s Total Music Related Sales for the first half of 2013
• 2PM alone posted higher total sales in the first half of 2013 compared to JYP Entertainment (Pre Merger) as a whole
• miss A makes up a total of 70% of sales for JYP Entertainment (Pre merger) for the first half of 2013

Now some more in depth explanations. JYP Entertainment as we usually know it is the agency responsible for artists such as miss A, Wonder Girls, 2PM, 2AM, Joo, 15& and JYP himself. However there is actually two separate companies.

Only one part of the overall brand we associate as “JYP”

One is the publicly listed JYP Entertainment, which is responsible for miss A (Actually they are only half-responsible for missA since they are contracted under AQ Entertainment but lets skim over that for now), Park Jin Young, 15&, Baek Ah Yeon and a whole bunch of actors.

Meanwhile JYP (Which we’ll call JYP-Parent) is the non-listed company that is responsible for artists such as Wonder Girls, 2PM, 2AM (Once again like miss A, they are contracted under Big Hit but we’ll skim over it as well), Joo, actress Kim So Young and Kim Ji Hyun.

On September 13, JYP Entertainment held a “ONE JYP Investors Meeting” where JYP Entertainment President Jung Oak discussed the implications of a merger between the two companies, setting some lofty goals in the process.

JYP Entertainment president Jung Oak during the “ONE JYP” investors meeting

During the meeting, JYPE President Jung Oak revealed that “While JYP Entertainment so far has been a company that has focused on the production of singers and music, starting from this year we will be increase the scope of our business to include other ventures such as movie, drama production, musicals, actors and tour packages.”

He has also stated the JYP Entertainment plans to increase its focus on the overseas market. Their push into the Japanese market was delayed due to their push in the U.S. market but they now plan to strengthen their business in Japan along with creating a branch in Thailand by Fall of this year. 

Concerts such as this will now be produced by JYP Entertainment alone

They also revealed that they will now be producing their concerts internally, ending their concert production relationship with CJ E&M.

However they will be reducing some of their U.S. business ventures with President Jung Oak stating that “We will be scaling down and minimizing the amount of effort and expenses in regards to the U.S. However, we will be looking into steps that will allow us to increase our profits in that market.”

One of JYP Entertainment’s US related business ventures

President Jung Oak explained that at least for the U.S. market the company has secured royalties for their “Diamond Tears” headphone products, produced in conjunction with Monster. They also plan to create a global audition program with famous producers such as Mark Burnett.

In regards to their core music business, he states that JYP Entertainment will continue to invest in their music business and will debut four new idol teams to increase sales. They also plan to showcase a new boy band in the Japanese market.

Lastly President Jung Oak has revealed that he expects to see the larger merged JYP Entertainment post gross sales of approximately $51.3 million USD (Exchange rate at 1000 KRW to US$0.92) along with operating profits of approximately US$10.1 million for the first year after the merger (2014).

Groups like 2PM will now be reflected on the JYP Entertainment Financial Reports. 

As a comparison, in our previous financial report article, JYP Entertainment’s pre merger combined gross sales for the first half of 2013 was US$5.08 million with a combined operating loss of US$2.1 Million. JYP Entertainment’s expected total gross sales (According to their latest DART Merger report) for 2013 is approximately US$11.6 Million with operating losses of US$3.6 Million.

So long story short, JYP Entertainment expects to see their business increase almost 5 fold from 2012 to 2014 through the merger of JYP Entertainment and JYP and the subsequent expansion of their business. 

But wait, we actually don’t know what the financial state of JYP-Parent is? Well good news because, for what I believe is the first time,  JYP-Parent’s financial state has been publicly stated in the JYP Entertainment’s DART report in regards to their merger. According to the report, JYP-Parent’s expected gross sales for 2013 is approximately $25 Million USD along with expected operating profits US$6.5 Million.

The expected gross sales for the merged company in 2013 is approximately $27 Million USD along with operating profits of  $1.6 Million. So looking at it like this, JYP Entertainment expects to see their sales double while also increasing their operating profits by a factor of almost 10. Not entirely impossible but certainly very ambitious. 

Now in the previous photo above, I specifically mentioned that 2PM will now be included in the JYP Entertainment financial report. I’ve included this note for a very specific reason, a fact that will soon become apparent when we delve into the merger report (Page 132 on their PDF report). First here is a table of sales and the percentage each artist under the JYP-Parent label is responsible for.

And a pie chart just to highlight the above data

So in simple terms, 2PM makes up almost 80% of all sales in JYP-Parent. Especially important because they will now come under JYP Entertainment and thus their financial performance will be recorded in the publicly listed JYP Entertainment. The low numbers for miss A and 2AM thou should be explained. Up until the end of 2010, missA was fully under the umbrella of JYP-Parent. However after that they were pulled out into the separate companies we call “AQ Entertainment” and “JYP Entertainment” Thus their performance will be listed under that company and not JYP Entertainment. A similar tale for 2AM, who is managed by Big Hit Entertainment. But their numbers are higher here compared to missA because 75% of 2AM sales still get registered with JYP-Parent.

miss A is responsible for 70% of sales for JYP Entertainment (Pre Merger)

Want to know something even more amazing? JYP Entertainment’s total sales from artists (Which include miss A, Rain, JYP, 15&, Baek Ah Yeon and a few others) was approximately US$4.62 Million in the first half of 2013. During that same period, total sales for 2PM alone were US$7.9 Million. Now there is some caveats such as the fact that Rain is no longer under JYP Entertainment (Thou he still has some residual sales being reported under JYP Entertainment for long term contracted work) but miss A appears to have taken up most of that slack, posting sales of US$3.2 Million in just the first half of 2013 compared to their 2012 total of US$4 million. In terms of percentages, miss A is responsible for 70% of sales under JYP Entertainment. But you can see why the merger of the two companies is going to make JYP as a whole look a lot healthier than it does now.

In either case, the extraordinary general meeting was held on September 13 to vote on the merger and the vote has passed. This means that from October 17, there will be no JYP Entertainment and JYP-Parent split. Instead we will now have a singular listed company called “JYP Entertainment” with Park Jin Young remaining the largest shareholder at 17.66%