SEOUL (Reuters) – Big Hit Entertainment, the management label of hugely popular South Korean K-Pop group BTS, priced its initial public offering (IPO) at top of its range on Monday, in South Korea’s largest listing in three years.
Institutional investors had forecast huge demand for the shares, with Big Hit riding on the success of the seven-member band, which has become the first South Korean group to reach No.1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles chart with song “Dynamite”.
Big Hit priced the IPO at 135,000 won ($115) per share, it said in a regulatory filing, the top of an indicative price range of 105,000-135,000 won announced earlier this month.
It will raise 962.6 billion won ($820 million) through the offer of 7.13 million new shares. It is the biggest South Korean IPO since Celltrion HealthCare raised 1 trillion won in 2017.
Based on the pricing, Big Hit’s total market value is expected to be about 4.8 trillion won, taking into account common shares plus redeemable preferred shares that will be converted into common shares upon the IPO.
($1 = 1,173.8900 won)
Reporting by Joyce Lee; Editing by Richard Pullin