According to reports, BTS fans are expected to buy shares of Big Hit Entertainment, the agency behind the global idol group BTS, as the company prepares to go public with an IPO.
Big Hit is expected to be listed on the KOSPI market in October and investment experts say the IPO will be the largest in three years in South Korea.
Big Hit Entertainment's IPO price is expected to be set between 105,000 KRW (~89.32 USD) and 135,000 KRW (~114.84 USD). The number of new shares to be issued is about 7.1 million, which Big Hit plans to raise 962.6 Billion KRW (~818.3 Million USD).
Although the price is more than 100,000 KRW per share, BTS fans, 'ARMY', are expected to participate in the IPO regardless of the price. Most fans, rather than investing, want to support their favorite group and have at least one share in the company to complete their souvenir fan collection for BTS.
Experts believe that the IPO could be a huge success that is enough to shake up the capital market.
Hwang Hyun Joon, an analyst at DB Financial Investment, stated that with all the investment in the IPO, Big Hit could hit a 10 trillion KRW (~8.5 Billion USD) market cap.
He explained that the time is perfect as there is an overflow of liquidity and BTS has just topped the Billboard charts.
Some BTS fans plan to directly buy Big Hit shares on their favorite band member's birthday or on other anniversaries. There are reports that some fans even took out hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of personal loans to buy Big Hit Entertainment stock. This means that they are buying the stocks without knowing the value of the shares and are buying out of the love for their artist.
Although fans do not buy stocks as a sign of investment, there are some cases in which a fan gained a big profit from stocks bought for such reasons.
A Korean media outlet reported that a fan of girl group Girls' Generation bought 22.5 million KRW (~19,000 USD) worth of shares in their agency SM Entertainment in 2008 and hit the jackpot when the stock value increased more than 2,700 percent in three years and the shares were worth over 600 million KRW (~510,000 USD).
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"There are reports that some fans even took out hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of personal loans to buy Big Hit Entertainment stock." - Whoever does this is an idiot. - ARMY who buy what they can afford to add to their BTS collection I can understand and fully support, but taking out massive loans is insane. BTS are literally peaking right now, it's impossible to go bigger so buying stock at it's highest means you'll never repay those loans. It's the worst financial decision you could ever make. - Lets not forgot at least one member is due to go into the actual army soon so the stock price will obviously dip a little while he's not available to promote.
The SNSD example doesn't really apply here since it was only a year after their debut that the stock was available so they still had time to grow. ARMY should buy in safe amounts, it allows more fans to buy in too since stocks are limited and it's not going to get you into terrible debt too.
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