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BIG Hit Entertainment Co., the manager of K-pop boy band BTS, is looking to raise up to 962.6 billion won ($ 812 million) in a South Korean initial public offering that will become its largest. of the country in three years.
Big Hit set the selling price range of 7.13 million new shares at 105,000 to 135,000 won each, according to a statement released Wednesday. At the top of the range, it would have a market capitalization of 4.6 trillion won ($ 3.9 billion), based on the number of common shares.
Big Hit and BTS have helped popularize K-pop, adding to the growing global visibility of Korean entertainment, including popular TV dramas in Asia and movies like Parasite, this year’s Oscar winner for best picture. Bts “Dynamite ”topped the Billboard Hot 100, the first Asian act to be number one on the US music chart since Kyu Sakamoto’s“ Sukiyaki ”ranked number one for 3 weeks in 1963.
The IPO will test investors’ appetite for K-pop, as shares in publicly traded rivals SM Entertainment Co., home of boy band EXO, had fallen 43% this year to lows. June due to concert cancellations due to the coronavirus pandemic. Since then, the shares have rebounded and are now down 3% this year.
Big Hit said in 2017 that it was considering a listing and has since made the seven-member ensemble one of the world’s top live giveaways, raising $ 170 million in 2019, ranking fifth, just behind Elton John, according to the concert trade publication. Pollstar.
Big Hit’s will also help drive the South Korean IPO market, which had been suffering from low trading volumes in recent years. About $ 2.81 billion has been raised through stock sales for the first time this year, gradually approaching the $ 3.38 billion raised in all of 2019, data compiled by Bloomberg shows.
Earlier this year, SK Biopharmaceuticals Co. raised $ 784 million in what was then Korea’s largest initial public offering in three years. Kakao Games, a unit of Kakao Corp., is set to list on Kosdaq next week, having raised 384 billion won in its offering. The deal attracted around 59 trillion won in offerings from retail investors, according to Yonhap News.
Founder and CEO Bang Si-hyuk is Big Hit’s largest shareholder, owning 43.44%, while Netmarble has about 25%, according to Wednesday’s filing. NH Investment & Securities Co., Korea Investment & Securities Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. lead the offering. – Bloomberg
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