JYP Entertainment soars 10% on reports of tender offer plan to buy up to half of firm

SEOUL, Oct 27 : South Korean pop music agency JYP Entertainment's shares jumped 10 per cent on Tuesday after Korean media reported Japan's Nexroc Group and related firm SVCV Inc were planning to announce a tender offer to buy up to a 50 per cent stake in the company.

The 50 per cent stake is worth about 700 billion won ($528.04 million) based on JYP's current market capitalisation.

JYP said it has not received a tender offer. Nexroc Group was not immediately available to comment.

JYP Entertainment, founded by South Korean singer-songwriter and producer Park Jin-young (J.Y. Park), is one of South Korea’s leading K-pop entertainment companies, with its main artists including popular K-pop groups such as TWICE, Stray Kids, ITZY and DAY6.

The two companies said in a press release that they are targeting between 25 per cent and 50 per cent of JYP's issued shares, with a tender offer price at a 30 per cent premium to a benchmark share price, Yonhap News Agency and other media said.

"The 'pre-tender offer announcement' of JYP Entertainment by NEXROC and SVCV is not typical and could be made illegal by the Korean financial authorities," said Douglas Kim, an independent analyst who writes on Smartkarma.

"A company has to launch a tender offer when they have enough financial backing/assets that would allow them to launch a tender offer," he said, adding that allowing such a pre-tender offer "could set a bad precedent in the Korean equity markets."