Breaking records around the world as the first K-pop act to have a top 10 Billboard 200 album, BTS' popularity is propelling Big Hit Entertainment to launch an initial public offering, Bloomberg reported on Monday.
Big Hit has talked with its shareholders -- which included Legend Holdings Corp.'s venture-capital arm and LB Investment -- about an IPO, the company's Chief Executive Officer and Founder Bang Si Hyuk told Bloomberg in an interview in Seoul.
Such an offering would be the biggest in the blooming K-pop industry in two decades and help Big Hit further capitalize on the success of the seven-member boy band after performances at last month's American Music Awards and on Ellen DeGeneres's talk show, the report said.
BTS is so popular that people have retweeted about or liked them on Twitter an estimated half-a-billion times this year -- more than U.S. President Donald Trump and Justin Bieber combined, according to the report.
BTS topped the Billboard's year-end Social 50 Artists list and emerged as one of the Top Artists of 2017.
BTS bagged first place on the Social 50 Artists ranking, which is based on radio play, sales data and streaming data. Rivals EXO is No. 35 and Seventeen is No. 41.
