Three years ago, Suh Kyung-Bae was the second richest person in South Korea. Today he's barely Top 10, a stark reversal in a K-beauty boom known for minting billionaires, not breaking them.
Suh's $US3.6 billion ($4.7 billion) fortune – down from roughly $US8 billion in 2017 – is largely comprised of shares in his family's cosmetics conglomerate, Amorepacific Group, which have fallen more than 40 per cent from a mid-January high. The parent of brands like Innisfree, Laniege and Sulwhasoo, Amorepacific was struggling even before COVID-19, and the pandemic has ushered in a slew of lifestyle changes that have made cosmetics less central to women's daily routines.
