{"id":93170,"date":"2020-10-15T20:49:14","date_gmt":"2020-10-15T19:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=93170"},"modified":"2020-10-15T20:49:14","modified_gmt":"2020-10-15T19:49:14","slug":"big-hit-ceo-bang-si-hyuk-now-worth-comfortably-more-than-2bn-as-bts-firms-ipo-takes-flight-in-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/big-hit-ceo-bang-si-hyuk-now-worth-comfortably-more-than-2bn-as-bts-firms-ipo-takes-flight-in-korea\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Hit CEO Bang Si-hyuk now worth comfortably more than $2bn as BTS firm’s IPO takes flight in Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"

Big Hit Entertainment, the company behind K-Pop superstars BTS, made its stock market debut in Korea today (October 15).<\/p>\n

The company’s shares opened at 270,000 South Korea Won (approximately $235) \u2013 double its initial public offering price<\/a> of 135,000 South Korea Won ($117) per share.<\/p>\n

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On its first official day of trading in Korea, Big Hit saw its share price peak at 351,000 South Korea won ($305), but closed at 258,000 South Korea won ($225).<\/p>\n

Big Hit Entertainment’s total valuation at the close of Thursday’s trading was 8.7 trillion South Korea won <\/a>($7.6 billion).<\/p>\n

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The seven BTS members’ shares were worth 17.6bn South Korea won ($15.39m) each at the close of trading, while Big Hit founder and CEO Bang Si-hyuk’s 36.6% stake is now worth 3.14 trillion South Korea won (approximately $2.8bn).<\/p>\n

That reportedly makes him the sixth richest person in Korea, according to the Korea Herald.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

It also makes him one of the richest independent entrepreneurs \u2013 in asset terms \u2013 to ever grace the global music industry.<\/p>\n

The high point in that particular league is often cited as Clive Calder, who sold Zomba Group\u00a0to (the old) BMG for $2.74bn in 2002<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 27 years after he co-founded the indie label with Ralph Simon.<\/p>\n

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“We will spur efforts to become the world’s best entertainment and lifestyle company,” he added.<\/p>\n

Bang Si-hyuk<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Speaking at the company’s IPO ceremony in Seoul, which the Korea Herald<\/em> also reports was the first in three months due to the pandemic, Bang Si-hyuk said: “We will uphold the stockholder’s value in various terms by raising profitability, growth potential and contributions to society.<\/p>\n

“We will spur efforts to become the world’s best entertainment and lifestyle company,” he added.<\/p>\n

Big Hit’s success is pinned on its flagship act BTS’ and specifically on its die-hard fan base, or ARMY.<\/a><\/p>\n

This weekend saw the band draw nearly 1 million viewers<\/a> to their \u2018MAP OF THE SOUL ON:E\u2019\u00a0 pay-per-concert, likely banking at least $35 million in the process.<\/p>\n

This event follows BTS\u2019 record breaking \u2018BANG BANG CON The Live\u2019 virtual concert in June, which saw them attract 756,600 concurrent viewers from 107 regions,\u00a0generating close to $20 million in ticket sales.<\/a><\/p>\n

In the H1 2020 period, Big Hit generated revenues of 294bn South Korean Won<\/a>\u00a0($249m at current exchange rates) which was significantly up on the same period of last year (H1 2019), when the company\u00a0posted half-year revenues<\/a>\u00a0of 200.1bn Won ($166m).<\/p>\n

In 2019, Big Hit\u00a0generated revenues<\/a>\u00a0of 587.2 billion South Korean won (over $500 million), which was up 95% year-on-year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“We will uphold the stockholder’s value in various terms by raising profitability, growth potential and contributions to society.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":90939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[86071,5832],"class_list":["post-93170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-big-hit","tag-big-hit-entertainment"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}