Anna Jiwon Park has been covering the politics at The Korea Times since the summer of 2024, when she joined the press pool for the Office of the President in Korea. Prior to that, she spent about five years reporting extensively on financial markets, regulatory authorities and the financial industry. She joined The Korea Times in 2019 after spending eight years as a broadcast journalist at Arirang TV, Korea’s leading global broadcaster, covering politics, defense and culture.
First K-pop ETF to be launched in US
K-pop group BTS are seen on stage during their “BTS Permission to Dance ― Seoul” concert at Jamsil Olympic Stadium in Seoul on March 10. Courtesy of Big Hit Music
By Anna J. Park
By Anna J. Park
A global ETF that tracks Korea's pop entertainment industry is set to be launched by a U.S.-based investment company in the near future.
The Exchange Traded Concepts (ETC), the U.S.-headquartered investment firm, has recently submitted its plan to launch the “KPOP ETF” with a ticker name of KPOP to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
According to the ETC's prospectus submitted to the U.S. SEC on April 21, the passively-managed ETF fund plans to track the total return performance of the K-pop index designed by CT Investments to measure the performance of K-pop-related industries, ranging from music, movies, drama and entertainment to content companies. The fund invests at least 80 percent of its net assets into the securities of the companies included in the index.
“To construct the index, companies are selected based on a combination of float-adjusted market capitalization and K-pop relevance score criteria,” the prospectus stated.
There are a few ETFs in Korea that track entertainment or media companies, including “NH-Amundi HANARO K-Pop & Media ETF,” “Mirae Asset TIGER Media Contents ETF,” as well as “KODEX Media & Entertainment ETF.” But if the ETC's K-pop ETF plan is approved at the U.S. SEC, it will be the first of its kind in the U.S. and European stock markets.