Shares in the management agency of K-pop sensation BTS rocketed on their stock market debut Thursday, making an instant billionaire of its chairman and boosting the seven band members’ own fortunes.
It later fell back to close at 258,000 won but Big Hit still had a market capitalisation of 8.7 trillion won — $7.6 billion — putting it among South Korea’s top 40 most valuable companies, just behind cosmetics-maker Amore Pacific and Hana Financial Group. The flotation also boosted the BTS members’ own wealth — Bang gave each of them more than 68,000 shares in August, worth around $20 million at the day’s high and totalling 1.4 percent of the company.“Considering all the information about the firm now available, the IPO price could be the lowest price we will ever see,” Park Sung-ho of Yuanta Securities told AFP.
South Korea requires all able-bodied men to serve in uniform to defend it against security threats from the nuclear-armed North, usually for 18 months.