YG Entertainment has refuted reports that it spent US$30million on BLACKPINK‘s contract renewals.
According to a business report released by the company on March 22, YG Entertainment had stated a KRW41.2billion (about US$30million) sum for intangible assets last year.
Per Korea JoongAng Daily, this is an accounting practice commonly used by music labels in South Korea when funds are needed for contract renewals. Of note, last year YG Entertainment had secured the contract renewal of K-pop girl group BLACKPINK for group activities, following a months-long negotiation process.
However, YG Entertainment has since denied that all the funds were used for that purpose, in a statement to Korea JoongAng Daily. “There were various other contract renewals as well as new contracts formed over various intellectual property,” a YG Entertainment spokesperson said.
The label added that it “cannot disclose the contract details”, but noted that “the amount in question cannot be considered exclusive to BLACKPINK’s contract extension”.
In the same report, Korea JoongAng Daily also noted that YG Entertainment said that it is “planning” for group activities from BLACKPINK. However, no timeline was specified in its response.
In other BLACKPINK news, ‘Water’ singer Tyla recently confirmed that she and Lisa are in talks to collaborate on new music together, telling Reuters that they “have been speaking about making a song together”.
Earlier this month, BLACKPINK officially joined Spotify’s ‘Billions Club’ with their hit 2020 single ‘How You Like That’. Lisa had previously made it to the list in September 2023 with her viral solo song ‘Money’.