Employee Stock Purchase Offer

Our company has these employee stock purchase offers every so often. This is when investors will purchase employee stock. Since we're a private company (not traded on a stock exchange), this is basically the only way employees can cash in their stock options and restricted stock units. Since my experience with stock at the previous company wasn't that great (stock went from $142/share to $275 to $9), I have been selling some shares during each purchase offer. It locks in any gains you have accrued on your stock holdings but if the price continues to increase, you lose out on potential gain. It's a game to see how much risk you can tolerate.

Anyway, we had a purchase offer in March of this year for $220/share. Thinking that's pretty good, I sold off a bunch of shares. Well, four months later, we managed to negotiate another offer, but now at $270/share. I just "lost" $50/share. At the time, I didn't think we would get that much more in four months. In hindsight, I should have held off but there's always risk that the stock price may go down. Oh well. I'm still glad that I was able to make some money off the stock.

I did lose out on the equivalent of a very nice new car though. :(

AOA Bullying

More K=pop sad news. Recently, two of the artists I listened to (and even saw in concert) committed suicide. The first was Sulli from f(x) followed by Hara from KARA. I think Sulli was depressed from the pressure of being an idol. She started in f(x) while she was very young. For Hara, I think it was abuse from her boyfriend, who was recently sentenced to only 1 year in prison for a whole bunch of crimes.


Sulli


Hara

Now the focus is on Mina from AOA (Ace of Angels). I followed them since their debut since they had a live band subgroup. Mina was my favorite since she was the bass player and us bass players have to stick together. They've had a lot of hits but in 2016, the lead singer ChoA left the group citing mental health issues. then in 2019, Mina left the group as well to focus on acting. However, recently she posted a bunch of text about how she was bullied by the group's leader, Jimin, for over 10 years. She even included a photo of scars on her wrist from suicide cutting attempts. It's really sad. Even though I like the music and the spectacle of K-Pop, the business practices are disgusting. From slave contracts to working their artists non-stop, K-Pop agencies don't have a good reputation.


AOA - Mina is third from the left

All the text is in Korean but here are translations from several Reddit posts:

In an Instagram post, former AOA member Kwon Mina reveals she left the group because she was bullied for ten years and considered committing suicide

Kwon Mina apologizes for worrying fans + reveals that all AOA members visited her house and Jimin gave her an apology

It was hard reading her posts since I can imagine her committing suicide. I'm glad all the members went to visit her, even Jimin, though Jimin's apologies don't seem sincere. Hopefully Mina can get some counseling help so she can be in a better place mentally.


AOA Black (band) - Front row is Mina, ChoA, and Jimin