HYBE Chairman Bang Si-Hyuk To Receive Less Than A Dollar As Salary, Here’s Why

HYBE, the organisation behind K-pop sensation BTS, has taken a unique decision as Chairman Bang Si-hyuk declared that he’ll receive just 1 won as his salary for 2024. This decision, highlighted in HYBE’s 2024 in-house compensation plan, aims to strengthen responsible leadership and align with the company’s ‘Pay for Performance’ compensation ideology. Despite the nominal salary, Bang’s overall income includes a bonus of 980 million won under the short-term incentive system. This marks a significant shift from the previous year, where the Chairman received a 50 million won salary and a 300 million won bonus.

On the other hand, the CEO, Park Ji Won, received 1.52 billion won in the past year. For the upcoming year, it has been determined that Park Ji Won’s compensation will be 2 billion won.

Industry experts speculate that this move might be a strategic approach by the entertainment agency to promote creativity in the K-pop industry. As per the statement received by YNK, in the ‘2024 Executive Director Compensation Plan,’ Hive said, “As chairman, in order to strengthen responsible management and emphasize the message of Hive’s ‘Pay for Performance’ compensation philosophy, the basic annual salary will be reduced to 1 won. It was decided.”

HYBE’s plan comes while the star members of BTS are fulfilling their compulsory military service, which has impacted the agency’s turnover. Despite this, Bang Si-hyuk is expected to have a successful year ahead, as his group, LE SSERAFIM has brought success to the company. The song Easy has also made it to the 99th spot on Billboard’s. Interestingly, Bang has also taken charge of I’LL-IT, a new girl group set to debut under HYBE.

According to reports by KBI Zoom, in December last year, the Korea CXO Research Institute shared their findings of a survey, which focused mainly on individual shareholders with holdings exceeding 10 billion won in stocks. According to the results, Bang Si-hyuk came out as the most successful shareholder, as he has 13,151,394 HYBE shares with a total stock valuation of 3.774 trillion won. This means, that Bang holds the largest stakes in Korean cultural and content-related stock assets.

Before establishing HYBE, Bang Si Hyuk worked as a composer for JYP Entertainment, one of Korea’s prominent music agencies. Interestingly, according to Forbes, Bang’s current net worth is valued at 1.8 billion USD.