{"id":68146,"date":"2025-09-16T19:14:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T19:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/68146\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T19:14:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T19:14:15","slug":"k-pop-catalogs-draw-investor-interest-after-demon-hunters-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/68146\/","title":{"rendered":"K-Pop Catalogs Draw Investor Interest After ‘Demon Hunters’ Success"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAs mainstream interest in the catalog investment market grows and investors look for opportunities outside of traditional Western pop and rock, the runaway success of Netflix\u2019s Kpop Demon Hunters \u2014 which has four songs in the top 10 of Billboard\u2019s Hot 100 \u2014 has helped spur interest in K-pop catalogs.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe K-pop catalog market out of South Korea functions differently than that of the United States, however. So, Billboard asked Jinwoo Jo<\/strong>, CEO of South Korean investment firm Beyond Music \u2014 which has built one of the largest collections of Korean and Asian popular music, including megahits from BTS<\/a> and BLACKPINK<\/a> \u2014 to share his perspective on the current marketplace and some of the institutional wisdom that Beyond has learned over its four-year history.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"HUNTR\/X\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tFounded in 2021, Beyond has invested around $250 million to acquire more than 35,000 songs, making it far larger than other Asian catalog investment firms and putting its portfolio alongside U.S.-based HarbourView Equity Partners in terms of number of songs in its portfolio.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe are like a specialized asset management company,\u201d says Jinwoo, whose firm has reportedly raised more than $400 million from Korean private equity and institutional investors including Pax Capital and KB Securities. \u201cWe try to focus on what we are good at, which is K-pop.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis year the Seoul-based firm acquired publishing rights<\/a> from the independent K-pop songwriter and producer Bekuh Boom, including to BLACKPINK hits \u201cKill This Love\u201d and \u201cIce Cream,\u201d as well as a stake in BTS\u2019 monster hit \u201cButter.\u201d \u00a0Beyond<\/a> also has an extensive library of older Asian classics from groups like Panic and Kim Sung Jae, and it recently expanded into the Latin market with the acquisition of Yandel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHere are three takeaways from Billboard\u2019s conversation with Jinwoo.<\/p>\n

\n\tStruggling Korean management companies are looking to sell catalogs. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tJinwoo says Korea\u2019s music management industry is going through a changing of the guard with much leadership and artist roster turnover, and several companies are looking for ways to shore up their finances.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFor management firms that are struggling financially, Beyond Music offers a way to liquidate part of their catalog and reinvest in their company.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s pretty much like an industry-wide issue at this point,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a winner-takes-all situation. If you don\u2019t have a BTS or a BLACKPINK, what are you going to do? The long tail of those management companies has a pretty significant existential issue. We are a liquidity and solution provider to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"NewJeans\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough Korean management companies are structured like one-stop shops with songwriters on staff, Jinwoo says acquisitions happen nearly the same way they do with Western music companies. Beyond negotiates with the songwriters to acquire publishing rights and the company to acquire masters. He says the primary difference is that, because the catalog investment market is nascent in Korea, getting a Korean songwriter to sell their rights \u201crequires much more [and] deeper trust, handholding and a greater sensitivity to cultural nuances.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tName, image and likeness rights, which Pophouse used to create the ABBA Voyage virtual concert in London, and that Primary Wave used to make Nirvana merchandise like heart shaped boxes and special edition Converse shoes, do not exist in South Korea.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tBeyond\u2019s catalog is comprised mostly of publishing rights and master recordings, and while it has explored name, image and likeness deals with the catalogs it holds from outside of South Korea, Korean law is still evolving around the right to one\u2019s image as it relates to music.<\/p>\n

\n\tBeyond generates returns in other ways, including through synch placements in Korean dramas, films and advertisements. One recent success came from the Japanese beer company Asahi Super Dry, which used BLACKPINK\u2019s \u201cKill This Love\u201d in a global ad campaign \u2014 a deal Beyond timed to coincide with the girl group\u2019s most recent world tour. \u00a0<\/p>\n


\"Billboard
<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tThe company also collaborates with social media influencers.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFirst thing every morning, we look at our internal data system, and it will show that [for example] 78 songs moved very dramatically over the last 48 hours,\u201d Jinwoo says. \u201cWe try to figure out why, and maybe it is because an Indonesian TikToker used our song in a dance challenge in Jakarta for the last two weeks. So, we will contact her and say we have 25 more songs and are willing to invest $10,000 in an event to make it bigger and encourage her to do to more frequent dance challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile the recency of K-pop megahits makes forecasting potential revenue generation less predictable, Beyond says it has been more surprised by a pop in streaming revenue from Korean classics.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tJinwoo says Beyond\u2019s strategy focuses on owning and working both new K-pop hits and older Korean and Asian evergreen songs, and the revenue generating trajectory of the latter category has been surprising.<\/p>\n

\n\tMany of the K-pop hits in Beyond\u2019s catalog are less than seven years old and still enjoying current popularity that is boosting their streams. Managing the decline of those songs\u2019 popularity through synchs is a top priority, Jinwoo says.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe believe, from our experience, actually, you can slow down the decay curve and somewhat defy gravity,\u201d he says. \u201cNot all the time, but most of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"KPOP<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tWhat\u2019s surprising, he adds, is that vintage songs in Beyond\u2019s library have seen streaming jumps in recent months. Company analysts are still working out why, but Jinwoo says he thinks it\u2019s due to many of these catalogs recently becoming available on streaming platforms. Korean management companies and artists have lagged Western markets in putting older songs on streaming platforms, he says.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMany songs in our catalog older than 10 years old are starting to grow. It\u2019s a big kind of a structured tailwind story for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As mainstream interest in the catalog investment market grows and investors look for opportunities outside of traditional Western…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[2589,18,117,4813,19,17,47574,337],"class_list":{"0":"post-68146","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-catalog","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-genre-kpop","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-money-makers","15":"tag-music"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}