From Hitman to Chairman, Meet Bang Si-Hyuk
The industrialization of creativity is here and Bang Si-Hyuk is a global titan.
If Walt Disney commercialized fandom for the masses, then Bang Si-Hyuk is industrializing it. He’s more scientist than creative, though his musical skills and propensity for making hits allow him to hold his own with any producer or songwriter in the world. His current net worth is almost $3B, thanks to the IPO of his label, Big Hit Entertainment (now known as HYBE), and the revenue generated from the band BTS, the record-setting Korean band that has fans all over the world. I dove in to find out - is Bang the biggest one hit wonder we’ve ever seen or is he creating the next Disney?
Chairman Bang is a manufacturer. His product is pop culture. His customers are everywhere. He studies demand and reverse engineers the content that will meet it. His collaborators say he’s a perfectionist. A good take is not sufficient; it must be the perfect take. Bang will trial and error his way to the perfect offering, which in the case of BTS took him 8 years. He started his company in ‘05 and BTS debuted in ‘13. It’s not so much that Bang made BTS, as much as he planned it. Like an entrepreneur looking for product market fit, knowing not exactly how to get there but knowing what it will inevitably feel like, BTS was the product of years of experimentation. They were Bang’s first product/market fit on a global scale. Many people try to deconstruct BTS’s success, but Bang simplifies it and boils it down to this - “their message resonated with a certain demand, and through digital media it spread quickly.”
Covid decimated most of the touring business, but through ingenuity and perseverance, HYBE generated $717M of income in 2020, up 36% YoY from 2019. The live touring losses were more than offset by a combination of strong sales for albums, merchandise, and virtual concerts, the latter of which generated over $50M in ticket sales. HYBE is currently trading around $7.6B, Bang’s 36% ownership makes him worth about $2.8B.
While every Western label is currently focused on streams and live touring, Bang is building new mouth-watering revenue streams. Enter Weverse, a digital playground and store for all of HYBE’s music business. Fans pay a membership to speak directly to artists, consume exclusive content, and learn Korean with BTS. As of a year ago, Weverse has 1.4M daily active. In Q1 of 2020, Weverse generated $29M in revenue for HYBE. In Q4 of 2020, WeVerse generated $96M (!) in revenue. Furthermore, they struck a partnership with UMG and YG Entertainment to welcome more artists outside of HYBE’s roster. HYBE isn’t just saving itself from a reliance on streaming, it could potentially save the entire industry from it. Weverse isn’t the only way HYBE profit’s off talent. Like Disney, they’ve extended their IP into mobile games, animation, books, toys and even instant tattoos.
For 20 years, Bang has been trying to unlock global audiences, specifically in America. He is out for global domination, and in the last twelve months, he’s laid the groundwork. Buying a 100% stake in Ithaca Holdings means that Bang has a top roster of American talent to profit from and partner with. It also means Scooter Braun, debatably the most successful American music manager and executive ever, now works for him, and has a seat on HYBE’s board. Just a few months ago, Bang stated his intentions clearly, “to become the best entertainment and lifestyle platform company in the world.”
Every media and technology conglomerate grows through partnerships and acquisitions. They can not build every business line from scratch. Disney wouldn’t be Disney without Marvel, Pixar, LucasFilm, and Fox. HYBE is following in the footsteps of Vivendi, WarnerMedia, and other great dealmakers. This is what makes me so eager to bet on HYBE. Since their IPO in October 2020, BANG has done the following:
Partnered with Naver (the Google of Korea) to integrate V LIVE and Weverse into a global fan community with Naver investing $371 into beNX, a HYBE subsidiary. The brand will still be known as Weverse.
Partnered with YG Entertainment, another major Korean music label to further expand YG’s reach in areas such as “content distribution, content, and media platforms.”
Partnered with Universal Music Group to launch a new joint venture and global boy band group, with global auditions set to air in 2022.
Acquired PLEDIS Entertainment and KOZ Entertainment
Acquired Ithaca Holdings bringing Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, and more under the management of HYBE America.
Bang has officially elevated himself from talented producer to corporate media mogul. Where did Bang Si-Hyuk come from and how is he able to do something that no other business man or creator before him has?
Bang Si-Hyuk was born in 1972 during a military dictatorship that censored what citizens hear, read, and see. As creatively stifling as that may be, Bang found a way. He read books all day long with an intensity and focus that his father claims made him fat. He then took that intensity to the piano where he played so long that he would get heat rashes on his bottom. He fell in love with Duran Duran and found it fascinating that his favorite music was made by people that were so handsome (not sure why, but feels important to note). His parents discouraged the behavior and it wasn’t until he was in college that he could unabashedly declare himself a musician.
In his 20s Bang met Park Jin-Young and they started a songwriting collaboration that would become very fruitful. Park, the initially more ambitious of the two, started JYP Entertainment and Bang was the behind-the-scenes musical genius composing, producing, and writing nonstop. It was during this period Bang got his new moniker, Hitman Bang. He made hits. A lot of hits.
In 2005, after a final disagreement over laundry, Bang struck out on his own and started Big Hit Entertainment. Bang then spent a decade evolving from Hitman Bang to Chairman Bang. Though he still produces and writes some of HYBE’s biggest hits.
It was around this time that Bang became maniacally focused on breaking into the states and the Billboard’s Top 100. He says he would memorize the list, look up every producer, study them and try to understand their methods. Bang started to understand the importance of social media and digital fandom. He started to craft his vision to become not just a hit maker, but a hit manufacturer. He knew he couldn’t just make music, he had to make something you could fall in love with.
When fans talk about why they love BTS so much, personality often gets mentioned before music and dancing. While most musicians try to maintain an air of mystery and show themselves through their music, BTS shows you everything. BTS started to receive industry and mainstream attention in 2017 when they won the Top Social Artist Award at the 2017 Billboard Music Awards.
Even their seemingly mundane moments, like petting a dog, garner 16M+ views. Their content is rarely edited, polished, or interfered with. Bang lets them post what they want and when they want, very intentionally it seems. They were the most tweeted about musical act all through 2020.
In the same way that TikTok is a Dance platform, BTS is a Dance band. It’s one of the main factors that make it unique, but it’s not all you get. The dancing hooked people and was really the viral element. The dances that BTS, and other K-pop, bands do aren’t just fun and exciting, they are replicable. People want to dance like them so they can imagine themselves dancing with them.
Their infectious personalities and viral dance moves, start to explain how a band singing and rapping in Korean could spread so quickly across the West.
BTS validates and creates a platform for HYBE to expand and launch new artists to a global audience. Which is necessary since they won’t be around forever. So where does HYBE and Chairman Bang go from here?
Hybe is made up of HYBE HQ and HYBE America. Underneath that is their 3 business lines, HYBE Labels for music and artist management, HYBE Solutions for new technology ventures, and HYBE Platforms to connect directly to their fans around the world.
HYBE’s audience and revenue is still growing in Asia. It seems as though it may have peaked in North American and the Rest of The World, which could be why Bang was so willing to pay up for Ithaca Holdings and partner with UMG on a global boy band. What’s most interesting though is the online growth. Their Weverse app is an absolute force of nature and could possibly put HYBE in a league with Tencent, Naver, Kakao, Facebook and YouTube. Leaving behind the limited growth and revenue multiples for music labels and distributors.
It’s unclear if the world will treat K-Pop and the rest of HYBE’s offerings like a passing fad or if it’s a global cultural mainstay. It’s important in music to not just follow trends, but to create and predict them. HYBE’s digital dominance and electrifying performances may be what the world wants for years to come.
It’s going to be an interesting 12 months for Chairman Bang and all his new partners.
I’m initiating an individual BUY rating and anticipating Bang Si-Hyuk’s net worth will triple in the next four years to ~ $9B, driven largely by an American expansion, further m&a, an additional hit band that grows and diversifies revenue, and continued dominance and profitability from Weverse.