The story
1978–2008: Founding of Seoul Records
Kakao M was founded as Seoul Records in 1978 by Min Yeong-bin as a subsidiary of YBM Sisa, a company mainly involved in creating language-learning tapes. The company was officially registered in 1982, and in 1984 it began to produce and distribute records of classical and traditional music. It was registered as a venture capital company in 1999 when it began to sell albums while operating an online shop. In 2000, the company's name was changed to YBM Seoul Records and it began to operate on KOSDAQ. The company joined the IFPI in 2003. Korean conglomerate SK Telecom bought a 60% share of the company in 2005, and YBM Seoul Records subsequently became part of SK Group.
2008–2016: Name change to LOEN Entertainment
As of 2008, the company was known as LOEN Entertainment. LOEN was said to be an abbreviation for Live On Entertainment Networks or
LOve + ENtertainment.
LOEN took charge of SK Telecom's online music distribution service, MelOn, in 2009. MelOn is currently the most used online music sales site in South Korea.
In 2012, the company signed a deal with streaming site Viki so that content from their artists (such as IU, Brown Eyed Girls and Drunken Tiger) would be featured on their site.
In August 2012, the recording artists under LOEN collaborated to release a collaborative EP titled LOEN Tree Summer Story under the collective title 'LOEN Tree'.
On July 18, 2013, Affinity Equity Partners, through its subsidiary Star Invest Holdings Ltd., bought 52.56% of LOEN Entertainment's shares, leaving SK Group with only 15%. Five months later, Star Invest Holdings acquired RealNetworks, Inc.'s 8.83% stake in the company. The company was reorganized to include two labels: "LOEN Tree" (Jo Yeong-cheol) and "Collabodadi" (Shinsadong Tiger).
On December 18, 2013, LOEN Entertainment acquired 70% of shares in Starship Entertainment, making it an independent subsidiary of the company.
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2016–2021: Acquisition by Kakao and name change
On January 11, 2016, LOEN Entertainment was acquired by Kakao Corporation.
On May 11, 2017, LOEN Entertainment announced its strategic drama production alliance with CJ E&M's drama production subsidiary Studio Dragon Corporation. Among the plans under the alliance is producing dramas based on web novels and webtoons on KakaoPage and Daum Webtoons (which copyrights are managed by Podotree, the web literature subsidiary of Kakao). (LOEN Entertainment first entered the drama production industry three years ago through the cable-web drama Another Parting, which starred Seo In-guk and Wang Ji-won.) On August 25, LOEN Entertainment announced that its joint venture with Studio Dragon will be called as Mega Monster.
The company has also signed actress Kim So-hyun through setting up her own independent label, E&T Story Entertainment, which is led by her long-time manager Park Chan-woo.
Upon approval by the company's board of directors in a December 20 meeting, the company is known as Kakao M Corporation (Korean: 주식회사 카카오엠) since March 23, 2018. The letter M in the new corporate name stands for three things: Melon (the company's flagship online music service), Music (the company's core business) and Media (another business that the company will advance to in the future). The company will now also have a corporate catchphrase, We Entertain.
Barely a month before the company's relaunch under its new name, Sean Seong-hoon Park resigned from both his positions as CEO of the company and chief strategy officer of its parent company, and later moved to Netmarble Games. He was replaced by Melon division head Lee Jae-wook.
On February 28, 2021, Kakao M's music was removed from Spotify after its licensing deal with the streaming service expired. They had addressed the removal in a statement, citing the streaming service as the party who had ensued it. On March 11, 2021, Kakao M renewed its licensing deal with Spotify.
In March 2021, Kakao M and KakaoPage merged into a company named Kakao Entertainment, while having its own representative system under the name "M Company" there.
From Wikipedia’s article on Kakao M, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4