On May 3, a topic titled “HYBE contacted a lot of SM employees” was published on the Korean forum Instiz, drawing attention.
The topic quoted the words of an SM Entertainment core worker, who told CBS No Cut News about HYBE’s attempt to scout talent from SM.
In particular, the core worker said, “It’s not new that HYBE paid close attention to SM. Among long-term employees here, not a single one hasn’t been scouted by HYBE. Everyone has received an offer from them”, adding, “This especially applies to departments like talent development and producing”.
Responding to this, most Korean netizens were baffled by HYBE’s “obsession” with SM, especially when it was revealed that HYBE attempted to become the major shareholder of SM and the founder Bang Si-hyuk expressed his wish to “trample on” aespa.
Below are some comments from netizens:
- Just why is HYBE so obsessed with SM?
- Didn’t
- Min Hee-jin was from SM and NCT’s manager also moved to HYBE. They have so many SM staff now
- Well this is understandable though, a new company will obviously want experienced employees
- Of course they want to steal personnel from SM lol
- It seems like HYBE doesn’t care about discovering new talents… They just want the ones already established