South Korean boy band BTS isn’t only an international musical sensation — its members are now multimillionaires thanks to a chart-topping initial public offering by their label, Big Hit Entertainment.
The K-Pop label issued its shares at 135,000 won, or $115 a piece, raising 962.55 million won, or $822 million, and giving Big Hit a market valuation of 4.8 trillion won, or $4.1 billion, according to Bloomberg. That makes the deal South Korea’s largest stock offering since July 2017, Dealogic said in an email to CBS MoneyWatch.
Big Hit is run by Bang Si-Hyuk, a veteran music producer who owns about 43% of the company and is now a billionaire. He gave the seven members of BTS, all in their early- to mid-20s, more than 68,000 shares each — that values their stakes at about $8 million apiece. The public offering values Big Hit at $4 billion, Bloomberg reported. Shares start trading on October 15.
Members of BTS attend the Grammy Awards.
Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic/Getty Images
One of the few K-Pop bands to break into western markets, BTS last year had its third No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart in less than 12 months. The group — whose name stands for “Beyond the Scene” — plans to release its second album of the year, called “BE,” in November after releasing its first English-language song “Dynamite” in August.
The group consists of Kim Tae-hyung, also known as V; Jung Ho-seok, or J-Hope; Kim Nam-joon, RM; Kim Seok-jin, Jin; Park Ji-min, Jimin; Jeon Jung-kook, Jungkook; and Min Yoon-gi, or Suga. They’ve been with Big Hit from the beginning, when it was considered a little-known startup.
BTS rehearses choreography of “Boy With Luv”
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The Big Hit IPO means retail investors can participate in the action involving a group whose success has been likened to the Beatles. Largely due to the success of BTS, Big Hit reported 587.2 billion won, or about $500 million, in revenue, and 98.7 billion won, or $84 million, in operating profit. Big Hit’s contract with BTS expires at the end of 2024.
Big Hit and BTS in June jointly donated $1 million to the ongoing anti-racism movement in the U.S. and beyond, triggered by the death of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, as a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck. BTS fans matched the septet’s donation within 24 hours.