HYBE Bang Si-hyuk owns 4 trillion won in stocks, which is 6 times higher than the combined figure of SM+JYP+YG Heads
“Entertainment company Plus” revealed the enormous financial resources of Bang Si-hyuk and Lee Soo-man and announced BTS’s military enlistment.
The broadcast of KBS 2TV’s entertainment program “Entertainment company Plus”, which aired on October 20th, gave a summary of the news about BTS and Bang Si-hyuk.
First of all, they reported the news of BTS successfully completed their promotional Concert on October 15th before announcing their enlistment plan. About 50,000 fans gathered at the scene and painted everywhere in Busan city purple. The event, which was also broadcast live in around 229 countries around the world through online media, was a hot topic.
This is actually BTS’s last performance as a whole group before their upcoming enlistment. HYBE officially announced the members’ enlistment plan later on. Accordingly, BTS members have prepared to fulfill their military service duty and they would enlist sequentially. Since then, HYBE’s stock price has also risen compared to before the announcement and is staying on a high balance, drawing attention.
In the meantime, Jin said, “If the country calls us, we will respond at any time”, personally putting an end to the controversy over military service exemption. In fact, this issue even went beyond the music industry to gain keen interest in the political world and had raised a long-term debate since 2018. The first member to join the army is Jin, the eldest member of BTS. Under the revised Military Service Act, Jin, who has postponed his enlistment until the end of this year after receiving the Order of Cultural Merits, has planned to submit the application for delay cancellation and will join active service within this year.
In the current situation, Jin can only enlist as an active-duty soldier. Prior to his enlistment, Jin received a song from Coldplay and was at the center of attention again. Korea has also provided opportunities for idols in military service periods to participate in public and state-level events. As HYBE raises hope for the resuming of BTS’s full-fledged group activities in 2025, fans and netizens are cheering for individual activities while waiting for the members to return after fulfilling their military service duty.
Apart from BTS’s military news, the rivalry between Lee Soo-man and Bang Si-hyuk continues to arouse hot discussions. Both graduated from the prestigious SKY Universities in Korea. Bang Si-hyuk was awarded an honorary PhD in business administration by Seoul National University, while Lee Soo-man was recently appointed as a professor of master’s studies at KAIST.
In the past, Bang Si-hyuk was the producer of an audition program and also worked as a producer for J Agency. Now, he has 753 songs registered under his name in KOMCA (Korea Music Copyright Association). His copyright royalty is known to be around 10 billion won.
As we looked into Lee Soo-man’s splendid career. Lee Soo-man was the first MC for the Campus Song Festival in 1977. In the same year, he won Teens Singing Contest. From singing to hosting, Lee Soo-man was an all-rounder entertainer. Meanwhile, Bang Si-hyuk produced “Billboard Hot 100 #1” boy group BTS. Bang Si-hyuk appeared side by side with BTS as the cover model of TIME magazine in 2021, and was also called the “Father of BTS”.
Lee Soo-man was the first figure to gain recognition. In 2000, he created the Korean Wave explosion after H.O.T successfully completed their performance in Beijing, China. He introduced BoA and succeeded in entering the Japanese music market. However, BTS was the group that showed the miracle of small and medium-sized agencies. Currently, BTS’s agency HYBE is reportedly paying about 18 billion won in annual rent alone to rent a building with 7 basement floors and 19 floors above ground. BTS members also shared, “I’ve never seen such a big company building like this in my life, BTS has grown a lot”, congratulating themselves.
Lee Soo-man’s real estate is also admirable. He purchased the Apgujeong-dong office building, which laid the foundation for SM Entertainment, for about 2 billion won. It is said that the building has amounted to about 90 billion won. He sold two officetels he bought in Cheongdam-dong in 2005 for 3 billion won each in May this year. Lee Soo-man also became a hot topic as the news of him giving a luxury villa worth 4.9 billion won to a 17-year-old reporter was reported. It turned out that the two were a couple.
Bang Si-hyuk also earned 2.7 billion won in capital gains in a year from his Hannam-dong luxury villa. In fact, he purchased the villa with 10.8 billion won in September last year and it is known to be 13.5 billion won now. In addition, HYBE was named in the “TOP 100 Most Influential Companies” by the U.S TIME magazine. After HYBE was officially listed on the KOSPI, Bang Si-hyuk also ranked 8th in the ranking of wealthiest men in stocks.
The Bang Si-hyuk’s HYBE stock value is also enormous. It is as much as 3.1934 trillion won.
His stock value in July last year was reported to be 3.92 trillion won, which is 6 times higher than the amount of 607.8 billion won combined by that of Lee Soo-man of SM, Yang Hyun-seok of YG, and Park Jin-young of JYP. As of October 2022, Lee Soo-man was revealed to own stakes worth 270 billion won, while Bang Si-hyuk’s stakes were worth about 1.6716 trillion won.
Source: nate
