19 June 2022 - 19:51A fan of South Korean K-pop boy band BTS poses with a photograph of the band in Seoul, South Korea, June 15 2022. Picture: KIM HONG-JI/REUTERS
Superstar pop band BTS’s announcement of a hiatus is the latest bad news to hit the nation’s entertainment sector, causing a 25% plunge in the shares of its managing agency, Hybe Co, on Wednesday. Korean entertainment firms have also been hurt by the postpandemic slump in online streaming services including Netflix that carry their content, and by broader concern about rising interest rates. And some analysts say the shares just got too expensive amid the boom. Hybe, for example, traded at more than 56 times its next 12-month earnings in November. It’s at about 25 now.
became the first non-English film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2020, while a year laterturned into Netflix’s biggest series launch yet. BTS manager Hybe went public and the group itself topped Billboard’s charts. Delighting many kids but not necessarily their parents,But as the BTS-triggered slump suggests, sometimes entertainment companies can be overly reliant on one act. The band’s announcement that its members will pursue individual projects wiped out about $1.