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%. 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.
2016–2021: Acquisition by Kakao and name change On January 11, 2016, LOEN Entertainment was acquired by
Kakao Corporation. (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 () 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. ==Corporate identity==