On December 3, 2002, the second-largest advertising agency, Hakuhodo, along with the fifth-largest, Daiko, and the sixth-largest, Yomiko, announced that they had agreed to establish a holding company and integrate their management by October 2003.

This was the first integration of Japanese advertising companies, with the aim of pursuing the expansion of their business and competing with their largest domestic rival, Dentsu.

The holding company will start with a capital of 10 billion yen and 86 employees, with the goal of listing its shares in the fall of 2004.

[7] On January 17, the Tokyo Stock Exchange announced that it has approved the listing of Hakuhodo DY Holdings on February 16.

[8] On February 7, Hakuhodo DY Holdings announced that the offering price for its own shares in conjunction with its listing had been set at 6,500 yen.

On April 26, 2006, Hakuhodo DY Holdings announced that Hirokazu Toda would be promoted from Managing Director to President, and Toshio Miyagawa would become Chairman with representative rights.

[13] On December 3, 2009, Hakuhodo DYM announced that they would open a new Chūbu branch office in Nagoya in April of the following year.

Asahi Advertising bought back the shares held by its employees and sold them to Hakuhodo DYM on October 26.

[18] On November 16, 2020, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department arrested four individuals, including a former department head at Hakuhodo DYM, on suspicion of fraudulently obtaining cash by fictitiously ordering part of the production work for TV commercials and receiving payments from the company where they worked.

According to Hakuhodo DYM, the suspect department head was dismissed for misconduct in a company internal investigation in September of last year.

[20] On February 28, 2023, the Fair Trade Commission announced that Hakuhodo, along with six other companies including Dentsu and Tokyu Agency, had been charged with violating the Antimonopoly Act (unfair restraint of trade) by pre-determining the winning companies for the management of test and main games ordered by the Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games between February and July 2018.

Additionally, Kenichiro Yokomizo, the former head of Hakuhodo DYM' Sports Business Bureau, was individually indicted.