HYBE Chair Bang Si-hyuk has emerged as the richest individual shareholder in Korea’s culture and content sector, with stock holdings far exceeding those of his industry peers.

According to the Korea CXO Institute on Thursday, a total of 27 individual shareholders held stakes worth more than 10 billion won ($6.67 million) in Korean culture-related listed companies as of Tuesday.

Their combined stock holdings were valued at 6.13 trillion won, up 2.1 percent from 6 trillion won in early January.

Bang ranked first by a wide margin, with stock holdings valued at 4.8 trillion won. He owns 13,151,394 shares in HYBE.

His stock valuation has increased by 249.8 billion won, or 5.5 percent, over the past roughly 80 days, a rise attributed in part to anticipation surrounding a BTS concert scheduled to take place in Gwanghwamun in central Seoul on Saturday.

The second-richest shareholder was Park Jin-young, the largest shareholder of JYP Entertainment and cohead of the presidential Commission on Pop-Culture Exchange, whose holdings were valued at 362.7 billion won as of Tuesday.

Yang Hyun-suk, executive producer and largest shareholder of YG Entertainment, ranked third with 225 billion won.

Other major shareholders included Danal Chair Park Seong-chan with 89.6 billion won, Cube Entertainment CEO Kang Seung-gon with 62.8 billion won, D&C Media Chair Shin Hyun-ho with 44.2 billion won, YG Entertainment President Yang Min-suk with 40.3 billion won and CJ Group Chair Lee Jay-hyun with 25.2 billion won.

The individual stock value of the seven BTS members was estimated at around 20 billion won each as of Tuesday as well.

The members are no longer subject to disclosure obligations related to stock fluctuations after being removed in September 2023 as specially related parties to HYBE’s largest shareholder.

Assuming they have retained their existing shares, individual holdings are estimated at 24.9 billion won each for V, Suga, Jimin and Jungkook; 22.9 billion won for J-Hope; 21.1 billion won for RM and 19.1 billion won for Jin.

Oh Il-sun, head of the Korea CXO Institute, said that while global interest in Korea’s cultural and content industries is at an all-time high, valuations of related listed stocks remain relatively low overall, underscoring the need for a turnaround.

The analysis covered individual shareholders with holdings exceeding 10 billion won in publicly listed Korean companies involved in producing or distributing cultural content such as films, music, dramas, webtoons and web novels.


This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY HYEON YE-SEUL [shin.minhee@joongang.co.kr]