Actors Jung Woo-sung and Lee Jung-jae's investment in Artist United (formerly Wider Planet) and their agency Artist Company merger has passed the threshold of an extraordinary shareholders' meeting.
Artist United held an extraordinary shareholders' meeting on the morning of the 13th, passing the approval for the merger with the unlisted Artist Company. About 52.87% (approximately 7.06 million shares) of the 13.36 million voting rights shares were present at the meeting. The merger proposal was approved with more than two-thirds of the votes cast and more than one-third of the total issued shares in favor.
The next agenda item, the election of directors, was also approved with more than half of the votes cast and more than one-fourth of the total issued shares in favor. The newly appointed director, Hwang Kyung-joo, has served as vice president of Dongguk Pharmaceutical and president of EM Tech. He is scheduled to be elected as the next representative.
In the financial investment industry, it was initially believed that the merger of the two companies would proceed smoothly, but unexpected obstacles surfaced. This came after reports that financial authorities were investigating allegations of pre-trading related to United. As a result, the stock price of United, which had been hovering around 17,000 won, closed at 13,590 won after dropping 19.73% on the 6th. However, as expectations grew for the success of Lee Jung-jae's appearance in the Netflix series Squid Game Season 2, it rebounded to 16,610 won on the 12th.
United has decided to buy back shares from shareholders opposing this merger at 17,451 won per share. According to the major report on the merger decision, if the total amount of exercised stock purchase rights exceeds 8 billion won, the merger can be canceled. The period for exercising stock purchase rights is from today until the 2nd of next month.
Lee Tae-sung, representative of Artist United, noted, “The stock price has fallen due to recent reports of investigations by the Financial Services Commission, but the current management, including Lee Jung-jae and Jung Woo-sung, are not subjects of the investigation,” adding, “Considering the trends in stock price recovery, I cautiously believe that the merger will proceed without issues.”