I've been working for a while on this, I am posting most the information at once, with some later adjustments.
It's related to BigHit's financial reports and BTS's contracts.
I've downloaded all reports from BigHit's official page. The korean DART site, the official site for financial reporting has an english version, but I couldn't find any reports in english, or any BTS filings.
BigHit is investing the revenue by using a tactic which is legal, but questionable, leaving a lot of money in the pockets of some people. Not BTS.
The problem is in terms of stock exchange, that it looks more like defrauding prospective investors, which is why, amongst other questionable factors, the South Korean commission has faced backlash amidst the collapsing BigHit stock so early after opening.
Other issues involving market manipulation to fake a “profitable” image, are BigHit’s acquisitions.
Pledis is a more or less broke company, with next to zero income except their main source being seventeen in 2018.
They also have been in the news for less favorable achievements:
https://www.koreaboo.com/news/pledis-ceo-accused-secretly-adding-wife-izone-albums-profit/
https://www.allkpop.com/forum/threads/wheres-pristin-pledis-finances.224841/
Last news of acquiring was the
Zico’s KOZ entertainment, another company on paper generating nothing.
Zico left his company one year ago and formed his company where he signed himself, hence a company only on paper.
On top of that Zico is currently enlisted in the military.
The other “company” acquired is
Source Music with one single girlband -
GFriend.
They invest money looking like a money laundering scheme, by purchasing failed companies generating next to nothing for what it appears to be a large sum of money.
The difference between BigHit and the other big companies - SM, YG -who are active on the stock market, is that their IPO’s were created before they had any huge boom of a specific artist.
People really buy stock because of the companies, their steadiness.
BigHit’s IPO not only lives on BTS, but it lives out of a momentarily hype that was created around them, especially focused on their baby clean image.
As oppose to other kpop singers/bands where despite high scandals or even medium ones, the company wasn’t depending on them, nor were all their public images groomed as “angelic”.
With BigHit so far, it looks like money laundering paired with cooking the books.
Rather than paying BTS, they use all this money for investments and more income from the IPO - not really sales from the other ventures/bands/companies - because as statistics are showing, BTS are still accounting for nearly...100% of BigHit’s revenue.
BTS might be the worse kpop band and idiots without a talent, but it should be their money, their billions. Not BigHit’s and the people around them.
Another
Netmarble connection is related to
MNet owned by
CJ ENM, who owns 21,96% in Netmarble, who was also part of Samsung until the 1990s.
Talking about BTS being the underground dog ... from a company where a quarter of shares belongs to MNet who had all interest to promote BTS...
Worrisome in relation to some of the scandals related to tiktok and other similar apps belonging to China, which is storing all data from users around the world, is the fact that since beginning, one of BigHit's investors has been a chinese company holding 10% of BigHit
LB Global-China Expansion Fund
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View attachment 47556
Public
statement released last month.
I have doubts, wether the declared 1.4% are really only BTS, meaning each member only holds 0.2% in the company while having all assets tied up in something worth less to nothing.
I believe BTS owns less than 1.4% total, because it was made public that BigHit gave a small amount of shares to all employees. THIS is what the total of 1.4% accounts for.
Maybe Bang only gave 0.1$ to each member and the rest of 0.7$ to the rest of the employees.
Most important - this share is the only one with a lock-up, as predicted by me months before they announced it, to ensure an "angelic" obedient behavior for at least 6 months.
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Financial reports for 2016 through 2019. Although 2018 and 2019 aren't as detailed as 2016 and 2017.
View attachment 47557
One of the things that can be observed here is that the more gross profit BigHit made, the more expenses, less profit percentage wise.
At this point I am pointing out to some of my suspicions made over the course of this thread, with BigHit declaring false expenses in return for a bigger profit than declared for following reasons:
- lesser taxes
- smaller cut for BTS (who gets paid like everyone else after all expenses have been covered
- investors are more interested on the gross profit. Whatever “expenses” the company has, due to known practices used by many, that’s on the company, not the investor. Well. Until the company goes bankrupt.
BigHit’s profit from those categories means what they keep in the pockets after paying everything, including BTS.
To give an example on a smaller scale - best year of my earnings was when I made a profit of 34% , under the circumstances that I designed and shot my own booklet. No extra fees for producer, IT, assistant. Nothing.
Irony is - I could have generated a higher profit if I would have had astronomical sales numbers, because, the more you sale, the lesser the production costs percentage wise. No matter if it’s a CD, or gadgets made in China - remember the poor quality of their products.
This been taken into consideration, for BigHit to keep a profit of 49% for product sales after paying at least 40-45% declared expenses (not real ones, later to this issue), means there’s a margin of 5-6% left for BTS who has to be divided by 7 and who knows if the division falls equally. I doubt it.
If true, this margin of 5-6% makes them the worst paid kpop band with the worst contract.
Which has been rumored to be the case long before the renewal of their contract.
The way declaring higher expenses, for a profit in the end, works, can be given on some simple examples:
If I were to purchase an item for professional/company reasons, the costs get deducted from my yearly filing. Same goes for professional trips, wardrobe, etc.
Many people have deals with sellers, like: hey, make me a higher receipt and I am bulk purchasing from you in the future, also we can split some of the profit.
All trips of staff members traveling with BTS are falling in the same big “expenses” category.
I’ve posted about scandals over the past years, of staff members having their girlfriends using BTS‘s private vans, and specially the caravans of staff members traveling with BTS which is unjustified.
I understand 7 stylists for each member one.
But they seem to travel with at least 30 people, even if it is for one interview.
Not to mention staff members also use BTS’s private jet. On BTS’s costs.
The cost of renting a private jet depends on the size and how many passengers travel - a smaller jet for 8 people is significantly cheaper than a larger one.
The ratio of flying public airplanes, business vs economy is usually between 10-15 more expensive in business vs economy.
They will for sure have at least a few staff members present with them in business.
Not to mention for the 100th time the observation of the female staffers being real stalkers working for free willing to sign a false paper saying they get paid in return for being near BTS.
Maybe not all of them, but for sure the majority while wearing Chanel and Louis Vuitton outfits.
Yet, it appears that a company known for hiring sasaengs/stalkers and paying the worst, declared millions (in dollars), as salaries and benefits paid to employees.
employee 2017/2018
View attachment 47558
employee 2019 - $40,737,512.71. apparently 249 staffers, it gives a salary and expenses of $13,634/each monthly?? c'mon...
View attachment 47559
The fact that BigHit made a profit of between 48-72% from royalty and cd sales is the proof that BTS, best case scenario, get something around 4% to 5% on the total earnings
View attachment 47560
BigHit took 67% to 72% (!!) royalties from advertising and commercial, TV, etc.
From the total of 100%, about 20% goes out to the CF agent, so even if BigHit doesn't use other excuses to pay other parties, involved, although this is always the case, best case scenario, BTS is left with 13% to be divided.
If BTS would have taken the rest of 40%, they would have billionaires by now. Like Bang Si-Hyuk, apparently declared as the 6th richest person in South Korea.
SM makes a 30/70 share division with the artist.
BTS members might be registered with komca as songwriters/producers, like everyone else. But it’s still BigHit/Bang cashing in the royalties.
Under royalties everything else falls, such as royalties from all the brands, logo, quotes (I purple you) BigHit registered as a patent. Meaning - obviously it’s BigHit receiving the royalties.
I can imagine the rest of 13% for 2018 being divided between BTS, Netmarble and the rest of the silent investors.
For 2017, I doubt BTS made anything if BigHit kept 72%. 72+20 CF agent = 92%
Probably the rest went to uncle Bang.
Given their statements, it is obvious that BigHit makes most of the revenue out of product sales
It is public knowledge that TVXQ's contract was 70 for them 30 for the rest, apparently before expenses, which is huge.
https://www.allkpop.com/forum/threads/allkpop-tvxq-jyj-sm-contract-details-revealed-no-slave-contract-drama.60774/
https://www.tvxqtoday.com/threads/official-tvxq-東方神起-동방신기-dbsk-tohoshinki-thread.10/page-1829
No wonder that Kim Jae Joong is one of the richest singers in South Korea.
https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/celebrity/article/3103366/tvxqs-kim-jae-joong-k-pops-richest-idol-how-does-he-spend
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Under “expenses”, which BigHit deducts from the total that has to be paid to BTS and can be excluded from taxes, following categories are included:
Packaging
Writers/Producers
This is where we come to several tricks used by companies, which I presume BigHit is using.
All writers and producers are BigHit employees which work on a salary and not revenue.
It’s standard unless you’re someone famous or an occasional writer.
BigHit’s deductibles already include employees salary, but they can also deduct it for this category for taxing purposes, by using tricks.
They definitely can use it in order to pay BTS less.
While they filled a 49% in 2017 net profit after deductibles/expenses, they actually made at least 30% more profit than declared.
From the remaining 20%, they did had some real costs like packaging, which is cheap,
or maybe they have their own pressing factory to get off cheaper, although their SONY (and txt’s Universal) contract, seem to be more a distribution contract, meaning they’re pressing and delivering the cd’s within Europe and USA.
Down below a calculation on pressing CD's using the most common rate in the USA.
By using different techniques, they pay less taxes, and also pay BTS less money.
Another trick used by labels is the one of charging the artist for expenses from broken merchandise, special cheaper offers, insurance, all sorts of fees, such as BigHit hiring lawyers to discuss their distribution deal with Sony
BigHit is selling on their webpage the new album for $51 in addition $16 for shipping costs (I tried New York and Texas), although they end up paying a standard fee to USPS so the shipping costs a customer pays end up in BigHit’s pocket.
51+16= $67
In Europe, the prices range from $67-$105 without shipping. That is to be calculated extra.
If I were to take the 100 as a mid number (because 105 does not include about $20 shipping costs) and multiply with 2.300.000 which is what they
sold until now approx, it gives a total of
$2,274,882 in earning within one week.
Usual rate for 5000 + cd’s is around 0.25.
I estimate something around 0.15-0.20 for more than 5000.
I’m gonna take 0.18 * 2.274.882 =
409,478,76 on printing fees. But could be less.
2,274,882 - 409,478,76 =
1,865,403.24 net profit
That’s the real net profit BigHit has made after one week of sale from the "BE" album.
Consider what I’ve mentioned before, regarding BigHit declaring less profit and more expenses in order to actually cash more in, because despite their total sales in 2017 and 2018 which were obviously much higher than one week of album sale limited on one single album, BigHit reported a total of $74,088,770.36 revenue from product sale.
How could that be, if only the CD sales alone were an estimated
According to
this article, BTS sold 2,353,106 copies in 2018, with an average price of at least $40, giving approx $94,124,240 in sales, minus 423,559.08 printing =
$93,700,680.92 , without any money in the pocket for shipping costs.
Yet BigHit declared a profit of only about $74 mil,
including all products sold.
Not to forget - the “product sales” category includes everything, not just CD sales which is only a small percentage of BigHit’s revenue.
In addition to the 2.300.000 copies, they sold
20.32 millions cds so far.
That makes around 1-2 billions from cd sales alone.
I don’t see those numbers registered in BigHit’s filling not even as a gross profit (before expenses).
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Two more variables to consider:
when traveling abroad, for the interviews they did, it's the organizer who pays for all costs. BigHit couldn't have had much expenses for 2017, 2018 and 2019, because most of the time they were in the US.
The organizer also pays all costs, such as penthouse/expensive suites for everyone you bring in, reservations to the most expensive restaurant, per diem, etc.
Apparently BTS stayed in the hotel, ordering starbucks and fast food.
What happened in some scandals of several bands, was that the managers were cashing in the money organizers were paying, while the singers had to pay for everything.
Obviously someone cashed in the money the organizers paid, money which were saved by BTS eating $5 meals.
the other one was mentioned by me in a very early posting - giving Bang's greediness, to milk out as much as possible, I have no doubt that he is behind the secondary tickets sold for up to $10,000 during both their US and Europe tours. Otherwise Bang could have opted like everyone else, for the Verified Ticketmaster, which would have made it less to impossible for anyone to bulk purchase and sell tickets up to 5 figures prices.
I assume millions illegal were made on top of all the rest ,alone from secondary ticket selling.