fantagio was founded as noa in september 2008 by na byungjun. the company was renamed as fantagio in june 2011.
fantagio entertainment is the company as a whole.
fantagio entertainment has 4 subsidiaries (founded in 2011/2012) and a manager training academy (founded in 2013).
madin entertainment (january 2011, for managing actors/actresses)
various members of hello venus, astro, and weki meki and more
fantagio pictures (november 2011, for production of movies and dramas)
production of the crucible, cunning single lady, astro’s to be continued, surprise u’s idol fever, and more
fantagio music (may 2012, for managing idols)
solid c&m (2012, for restaurant franchises, education, distribution)
people/names/companies you need to know
na byungjun: founder and now-former ceo of fantagio entertainment
woo youngseung: now-former ceo of fantagio music
jc group: a chinese company that invested in fantagio
wei jie: chairman/ceo of jc group and now ceo of fantagio entertainment
there’s a lot of info beneath the cut so settle in and get comfy if you’re gonna read the mess that has happened within the last 5-6 months between fantagio and jc group.
let me also preface this by saying that something like this has never happened before.
alright so fantagio hit a rough spot in late 2016 (december-ish). their stocks were down an they were struggling. cue jc group, a chinese company (they do a lot of stuff, housing, hotels, product production). they bought up (roughly) 27.3% of the company, and wei jie became co-ceo with na byungjun. at the time, it was a really good thing. it helped fantagio quite a bit and propelled astro through the tail end of their autumn story promotions. it wasn’t a really big deal at the time, and i don’t think a lot of people were aware of it. (at the very least, the wikipedia page never got updated, so i guess that says something.)
in late fall/early winter 2017, jc group bought more shares of fantagio, now owning 50.7% of the company. they owned the most of fantagio, giving them quite a bit of power (as i understand it, at least). in a board meeting in late december 2017, jc group kicked out na byungjun and put all company credit cards on hold.
side note: it is possible for a company to limit how much of their company shareholders can have access to (at least in america, i believe), but that isn’t something fantagio did (or maybe they couldn’t?)
fantagio staff sorta kinda freaked out when they realized na byungjun was no longer the ceo. a lot of the fantagio staff (at that time) had been there for years and knew na byungjun personally. the staff held an emergency meeting, where they threatened to go on strike if na byungjun wasn’t reinstated as one of their 9 demands (more about those demands in a bit).
the company credit cards being pulled was also pretty bad. these cards were used only for business purposes. fantagio actors were filming and promoting dramas. astro and weki meki had things to do. everything that their artists did came out of pocket. actors traveled to and from filming location with their own money. astro (might have) paid for aroha’s meals at gayo daejejun in early 2018 and astro and weki meki (might have) paid for their fans meals during isac. fantagio artists are the best.
it also came out that jc group had been sending fantagio’s money to an unrelated company in hong kong. the way i understand it is that everybody knew it was happening, but there was no proof. (either because it was being done so slyly or what, i have no idea, but they couldn’t prove it as far as i know.)
sort of related (but honestly not all that important, but it makes me distrust jc group more), jc group first said they removed na byungjun because of a “management deficit” and the next day they said they removed him because they were going to go in a new direction.
here’s a rough translation of the 9 demands of fantagio’s staff. (they said they would go on strike if these 9 demands weren’t met. also this is a really really rough translation)
(also gonna be honest and say i don’t know what 100% of these are referring to but here they are)
major shareholder jc group will immediately apologize for their actions
abandon any attempt to finalize recruitment of fantagio (stop buying stocks)
apologize immediately for all fund operations (includes financial enforcement, financial transactions, and account management)
apologize immediately for deliberate missteps and accidents against artists, staff, and customer payments
apologized for corporate credit cards being abolished, which has affected the operations of their artists
funds leaked to hong kong (not related to original business) immediately stopped and all funds retunred
jc group has to declare that fantagio is not a company operate solely for the sake of the major shareholder (which is jc group)
reinstatement of na byungun to co-ceo position and reinstatement of all dismissed staff
jc group should remove all group officials who led the incident (meaning remove wei jie and his people)
by the time fantagio staff announced their demands, however, jc group was quite powerful and they couldn’t really make him do anything. but na byungjun was given a position on the board. he quit, however, releasing a memo saying he felt like he had let down the company and the employees that were loyal to him. he didn’t want anyone to lose their job because of a strike, so he left. prior to this, quite a bit of the fantagio staff fired and replaced with workers from jc group (which isn’t an entertainment company in the slightest). there also came about a rumor that jc group would be “selling” fantagio trainees to other companies for profit. (it’s not entirely unusual for companies to do this, but rather (as i understand it), it’s more of trading than selling. jc group would not trade, they would be selling kids as if they were products.)
fantagio music was largely unaffected by this change (aside from the bit with the company credit cards). woo youngseung is the ceo of fantagio music and still holds quite a bit of power over the artists/promotions. however, weki meki’s second mini album release did get pushed back due to these issues. madin entertainment was also largely unaffected, though i believe seo kangjoon did turn down a pretty major lead role around when this was happening (we don’t know exactly why, but we assume it’s because he was unsure if he’d have the money to actually go to the filming).
yesterday (kst, 180513), however, jc group dismissed woo youngseung. this has caused a big issue because wei jie doesn’t have the right license/experience to be running a south korean entertainment company according to the stands set out by the CEMA (the korean entertaiment management association) in the act on the development of the public culture and arts industry.
article 26 of the act on the development of the public culture and arts industry states the following requirements:
those planning on working in public culture and arts must be registered by the ministry of culture. this applies also when the circumstances initially registered change.
those trying to register with a different method of what is listed in section 1 must match the following requirements
you must fulfill one of the following categories. however, if you are a corporation it must apply to more than one board member.
at least 2 years of experience working in the public culture and arts planning industry
complete curriculum regarding public culture and arts planning work that is carried out and determined by the department of sports, culture, and tourism.
i’m assuming that all was fine until woo youngseung was removed from power, and now the above from article 26 has been violated. because of this violation, fantagio would be considered to be working illegally due to not having the right licenses/registration/requirements. there is now a “red light” on all fantagio artists, meaning they are not allowed to promote or do anything, honestly, because it would be illegal if they did.
this is what i understand from here:
in a meeting on march 11, jc group decided to remove woo youngseung from his place and replace him with a new ceo that’s an employee of jc group. in wake of this, woo youngseung resigned on march 13. the person who has replaced woo youngseung is apparently the secretary of wei jie.
fantagio artists are currently not allowed to leave the agency to join na byungjun’s new company, stardium, as they are in contracts. with how wei jie has handled the situation, there are restriction on fantagio artists’ activities.
fantagio/jc group now have 45 days to appoint a new person that is registered with the CEMA and has the proper experience/requirements/licenses.
this article about astro’s apparent comeback planned for june says basically the same things as the other.
so, what does this all mean? i can’t say for sure, as i’m not really an expert on south korean laws when it comes to the entertainment business. what i can say, however, is that there isn’t really anything to be worrying about at this exact moment. it appears there are 45 days for this issue (about nobody having a license) to be resolved before things start to get really iffy. if, at the point after 45 days from now, nothing has been done, then we can probably worry.
from what i do understand, investigation into fantagio/jc group couldn’t happen until now. because there was no proof of jc group doing all of the bad things staff said he did (sending money to hong kong, removing na byungjun without notice), the korean entertainment management agency couldn’t really do anything. now there’s a real problem that can be faced and punished.
there’s a previous case similar. CEMA investigated a rookie actress who was terminating her contract. the company was investigated and CEMA said that the company didn’t have the right registration (like fantagio currently), and her contract was nullified. we may see something happen similarly with fantagio’s artists, but we can’t be certain on what will happen.
for now, we have to wait for updates and news. i will continue to keep everybody posted to the best of my ability when new information comes out. If anybody has any questions, please come to my inbox and i’ll do my best to answer them.
