HYBE Unilaterally Notifies Delay of Existing First Girl Group (Team N) Debut
🔗 CEO Min Heejin’s First Press Conference, April 25, 2024 (SBS, 2:14:59)
🔗 Full Transcript of CEO Min Heejin’s First Press Conference, April 25, 2024 (TRANSCRIPT ARCHIVE)
[00:42:34 ~]
All current NewJeans members joined based on the condition that they would be part of “HYBE’s first girl group.”
Around June-July 2021, HYBE CEO Park Jiwon and Source Music CEO So Sungjin notified Min Heejin of the following:
“Heejin, the team we’ve been preparing as HYBE’s first girl group will now have to debut as Source Music’s next girl group. Source Music will be debuting a new group led by Sakura and Kim Chaewon as the first one.”
CEO Min Heejin strongly protested and asked how they would explain the debut postponement to the trainees’ parents, but she was told, “That’s not your concern. That’s something Source Music needs to handle on their own.”
After ADOR was established, the trainees’ parents expressed their grievances to CEO Min Heejin:
“When our kids were being managed by Source Music, they were neglected. When Sakura and Kim Chaewon were recruited, we were so anxious—what would happen to our kids, did they all fail to make it? We were told nothing.”
In response, Min Heejin proposed establishing her own independent label “ADOR” and sought to transfer the trainees to ADOR to pursue a faster debut. CEO Min Heejin believed this was an advantageous solution for shareholders, trainees, and herself alike.
To this, Chairman Bang Si-hyuk presented the condition that “transferring trainees is impossible unless HYBE holds 100% of the shares.”