Daily Times

South Korean retail investors ponied up over $50 billion as they sought to lay their hands on shares in Big Hit Entertainment, the management label of K-pop sensation BTS – more than 600 times the value of shares on offer. The combined 58.4 trillion won ($50.3 billion) in orders fell just shy of a record 58.55 trillion won in bids for the retail portion of Kakao Games’ listing in September. Most of the bids for Big Hit’s stock, priced at 135,000 won per share, came late on the second of two days of orders from individual investors. “I waited until 2 p.m. this afternoon to subscribe because I wanted to choose the arranger with less competition for bidding,” said Oh Sang-min, a 32-year old retail worker who placed bids worth 100 million won after taking out a loan. He was told by his money manager that he would be able to pick up just two shares. There has been some concern that funds pouring in from retail investors could affect short-term money markets as the funds would be at brokerages’ disposal for three days before investors who are not allocated shares get their money back. But the total amount of retail bids did not match some heady forecasts of 100 trillion won, and market sources said on Tuesday they were monitoring the situation but were not overly concerned about the impact.