Big Hit Entertainment Chairman and CEO Bang Si-hyuk (L) and Korea Exchange Chairman and CEO Jung Ji-won pose for photos at the K-pop entertainment giant's listing ceremony at KRX's Seoul headquarters on Oct. 15, 2020.
Shares in the management agency of K-pop
sensation BTS soared on their stock market debut Thursday, making an instant
billionaire of its chairman and boosting the seven band members' own fortunes.
The initial public offering of shares in Big Hit Entertainment saw staggering demand, with the public section oversubscribed more than 600 times and applicants receiving only a tiny fraction of their requests.
The IPO price was set at 135,000 won, or roughly 118 dollars, but opened at double that on South Korea's main KOSPI index and within minutes spiked to its daily limit of 351,000 won.
It later fell back to close at 258,000 won, but Big Hit still had a market capitalization of 8.7 trillion won, putting it among the country's top 40 most valuable companies, just behind cosmetics-maker Amore Pacific and Hana Financial Group.
Big Hit founder and CEO Bang Si-hyuk, who retains a 36 percent stake in the firm, was said to be worth 3.8 million dollars at the peak, according to Bloomberg News.
BTS members' own wealth also got a boost as Bang gave each of them more than 68,000 shares in August, totaling 1.4 percent of the company.
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