HYBE's Stock Price Wavers Due To BTS's Military Enlistment Issue

HYBE ‘s stock price has been rising and falling for the past months mainly due to developments on its biggest income earner, boy group BTS.

In June, HYBE’s stock prices already plummeted sharply after the group announced they would be working on solo projects and would have a “temporary suspension” of group activities. Back then, HYBE”s stock went down by 25%, losing a market capitalization of ₩2.00 trillion KRW (about $1.44 billion USD). From a high of ₩294,000 KRW (about $212 USD), the stock price went down to ₩145,000 KRW (about $104 USD) in June, as a result of that announcement from BTS. It was later cleared that BTS members would still be doing group activities but would merely add more doing solo activities.

BTS during their 2022 Festa Dinner, where they announced their solo projects and “temporary halt” to group activities. | *BANGTANTV/YouTube*

On September 19, the stock price rose by 2.27% as an aftermath of the public opinion survey results that most respondents approved of alternative military service for BTS.

Realmeter had 1,018 respondents over the age of 18 from September 14 to 15 and found that 60.9 percent of these respondents were in favor of the revision of the country’s Military Service Act, allowing artists who were acknowledged to uplift the country’s reputation globally to serve their mandatory military duties through alternative services. So far, only classical musicians or athletes who received world-class awards have been given this consideration.

Professional Footballer Son Heung Min, who plays as a Forward for Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur and is Captain for the South Korea national team, was granted an exemption to military service by winning gold at the 2018 Asian Games | *Nikkei Asia*

On Aug. 31, defense minister Lee Jong Sup said during a parliamentary defense committee meeting that the ministry planned to decide on BTS members’ military exemption based on public poll results. As a result, HYBE’s stock price increased by 6.76 percent, finishing at ₩182,000 KRW (about $131 USD). But the price plunged the next day again by 8.26% when the defense minister revised his comment, saying that nothing had been confirmed on how public poll results would be reflected in the government’s official decision.

Results of another public poll conducted by a local daily came out on Sept. 6, wherein 54.1 percent of the respondents said BTS members should serve their mandatory military service, prompting the stock price to fall by another 4.18 percent that day.

The eldest BTS member, Jin, already turns 30 in December, still with no clear direction on BTS’s military enlistment. Apart from a bill proposing to revise the Military Service Act to allow exceptional pop artists to serve alternative duties, another revision bill that aims to increase the upper limit of the age cap to 33 was also proposed at the National Assembly.