Big Hit Entertainment, the management agency of Korean pop boyband BTS, soared to the maximum daily ceiling of 30 percent as it debuted on South Korea's main bourse today.
The stocks shot up by 30 percent to 351,000 won (US$306), but Big Hit Entertainment exchanged hands up 19.44 percent at 322,500 won as of 9:33 a.m, local time in South Korea, Yonhap reports.
"We will uphold the stockholder's value in various terms by raising profitability, growth potentials and contributions to society," Big Hit Entertainment head Bang Si Hyuk said at the listing ceremony, which was livestreamed on YouTube.
"We will spur efforts to become the world's best entertainment and lifestyle company," he added.
BTS members were not present at the ceremony.
The ceremony marked the first initial public offering celebration in about three months, due to the new coronavirus.
The agency has been called one of this year's three big IPO deals in South Korea, along with biopharmaceutical blue chip SK Biopharmaceuticals and mobile game giant Kakao Games.
Big Hit Entertainment chief Bang holds the most shares (12,377,337), or a 36.6 percent stake in Big Hit Entertainment, according to the agency and financial industry data.
Last year, the agency's annual sales almost doubled to 587.2 billion won, with an operating profit of 98.7 billion won.
South Korea’s entertainment sector is “becoming global-scale,” Daniel Yoo, head of global investment at Yuanta Securities Korea, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” today.
“We think that the entertainment industry will be very important industry for Korea for investor(s) to invest,” Yoo said.
Still, the analyst admitted that Big Hit Entertainment’s current valuation “might be too expensive” as its present dependency on the South Korean seven-member boyband BTS is “very high.”
Members of BTS during an online media day event in Seoul on September 2. The band's song Dynamite topped Billboard's main Hot 100 singles chart in the United States on August 31.
Big Hit Entertainment head Bang Si Hyuk, left, and Korea posting for photos at the K-pop entertainment giant's listing ceremony held today at KRX's Seoul headquarters.
