SK Hynix, South Korea’s Memory-Chip Giant, to List on Wall Street. What to Know.
1 min read
Key points:
- Shares close up in South Korea
- Company raises $26.5 billion
- Set to list depositary receipts
SK Hynix is about to make history today when it starts trading on the Nasdaq. Shares are up nearly 700% over the past year.
🚀 Wall Street Welcomes SK Hynix
- South Korea's memory-chip heavyweight SK Hynix 000660 is set to begin trading on the Nasdaq Friday under the ticker SKHY, after pricing its American depositary receipts (ADRs) at $149 each.
- An ADR lets US investors buy shares of foreign companies without trading on overseas exchanges. That’s not an IPO because the company is already public in South Korea.
- The listing raised a whopping $26.5 billion, making it one of the biggest US equity offerings in recent memory. Investors clearly didn't mind writing large checks when AI exposure was on the table.
- Demand was just as eye-catching. The offering was reportedly seven times oversubscribed, meaning investor orders far exceeded the number of shares available.
🧠 AI Boom Fuels Demand
- SK Hynix is a beast, though. It’s one of the world's leading producers of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) — specialized memory chips that feed AI accelerators with data at blazing speeds. No HBM, no AI supercomputers.
- That positioning has turned the company into one of the biggest winners of the AI spending spree. Shares listed in South Korea have surged more than 200% this year and nearly 700% over the past 12 months.
- The blockbuster listing also underscores a bigger trend: investors remain eager to pay up for companies supplying the picks and shovels of the AI gold rush.
💻 From Hyundai to Trillion-Dollar Giant
- SK Hynix closed 5.3% higher in Seoul ahead of its Wall Street debut, extending an extraordinary rally that has made it South Korea's second-most valuable company, behind only Samsung Electronics, with a market value around $1 trillion.
- The company's roots stretch back to 1983, when it was founded as Hyundai Electronics.
- It later merged with LG Semicon, became Hynix Semiconductor, and adopted the SK Hynix name after SK Telecom acquired a controlling stake in 2012.