SEOUL, April 2 (Reuters) - South Korea's HYBE Co Ltd, formerly known as Big Hit Entertainment and the manager for K-pop supergroup BTS, is to acquire music executive Scooter Braun's Ithaca Holdings in a $1.05 billion deal.
The merger brings together BTS, Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande and other artists under one roof for management, label services and publishing.
Ithaca Holdings CEO Scooter Braun will join the board of HYBE and Scott Borchetta will remain CEO of Big Machine Label Group, HYBE said in a statement on Friday.
HYBE said in a separate regulatory filing that its unit Big Hit America will pay 1.19 trillion won ($1.05 billion) for the merger, including cash payments to existing shareholders and creditors of Ithaca Holdings LLC.
In a second filing HYBE said it would issue new shares worth 182 billion won to be allocated to Braun, Borchetta, Grande, Bieber and others.
Artists of both companies will participate in HYBE's capital increase, to further strengthen the ties between the two companies, HYBE said in its statement.
As part of the transaction, Carlyle Group Inc will sell its significant minority stake in Ithaca Holdings, after initially investing in the company in 2017, the statement said.
($1 = 1,127.2000 won)
(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Additional reporting by Chibuike Oguh; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
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