Attrakt act Fifty Fifty, which arrived on the scene in 2022 and remains embroiled in a contractual dispute with the K-pop company. Photo Credit: 티비텐
Just days after Geffen and Hybe announced the (potential) members of their long-awaited girl group, K-pop firm Attrakt has teased a new girl group of its own and secured a reported $7.5 million investment.
Seoul-headquartered Attrakt, the agency behind Fifty Fifty, just recently scored the multimillion-dollar investment and informed fans of the forthcoming girl group. On the former front, regional outlets including the Korea Herald reported that Singapore-based Evergreen Group had committed ₩10 billion (currently $7.51 million) to Attrakt.
Established in the 1990s as a timber processing and trading company, Evergreen has since branched out into finance, real estate, entertainment, and different sectors, according to its website. 2022 saw the entity debut “Evergreen Japan Corporation,” while its CEO, David Yong, released a K-pop track entitled “In My Pocket.”
Back to the over $7.5 million that Evergreen’s reportedly injected into Attrakt, the K-pop business’s CEO, Jeon Hong-jun, in a statement touched upon plans to utilize the capital to continue building out. And part of this expansion evidently involves developing a new girl group, as highlighted at the outset.
Two days ago, Attrakt took to Instagram to upload a collection of images spelling out “Attrakt New Girl Group Project.” Besides indicating that more information was “coming soon,” however, higher-ups didn’t provide any concrete details about the act.
In a statement of his own, Evergreen’s Yong touted Attrakt’s “vision” as well as the “planning and promoting capability” of Jeon Hong-jun – albeit without mentioning the ongoing controversy involving the latter professional and the aforesaid Fifty Fifty.
According to a Korean-language report from Naver, the girl group’s members last month filed a “criminal complaint” against the Attrakt head, concerning the alleged misuse of a ₩2 billion ($1.50 million) distributor advance.
Related to the work of Fifty Fifty and intended for Attrakt itself, this advance was instead forwarded to and spent by Jeon Hong-jun’s Star Crew Entertainment – while also being billed as an investment in Fifty Fifty, per the translated complaint.
Before spearheading this newest action, Fifty Fifty had in June filed a criminal complaint against Attrakt’s former CEO and moved to exit its exclusive contract. Regional reports show that at least one of the motions has been dismissed, with Fifty Fifty and its legal team having disclosed plans to appeal.
Back in July, data revealed that K-pop album exports had cracked a record $133 million during H1 2023, as companies including the Belift Lab owner Hybe, SM Entertainment, and JYP Entertainment work to expand their reach on the global stage.
Worth mentioning in conclusion is that SM was in June embroiled in a contractual dispute with Exo – though the parties were able to put the decidedly public disagreement in the rearview before the group released Exist in July.
