SK Hynix plans $29B US listing, potentially largest by foreign firm

SK Hynix, the world’s second-largest memory chipmaker, is planning to raise up to $29.4 billion through an American depositary receipt listing on Nasdaq. If the deal goes through as planned, it would be the largest share sale by a foreign company on a US exchange, ever.

The South Korean semiconductor giant announced on June 24 that it will issue up to 17.79 million new shares, with each common share represented by 10 ADRs priced initially around $166 each. Trading is expected to begin on July 10.

Where the money is going

SK Hynix plans to funnel the proceeds into new fabrication plants in Yongin, advanced packaging facilities in Cheongju, and the acquisition of extreme ultraviolet lithography equipment. All of this is designed to ramp up production of high-bandwidth memory, the specialized chips that make Nvidia’s GPUs actually useful for AI workloads.

This listing is actually the second attempt at tapping US capital markets, and a significantly more ambitious one. Back in March, SK Hynix had floated a plan to raise somewhere between $9.6 billion and $14.4 billion in the second half of the year.

That confidence isn’t unfounded. SK Hynix shares have risen approximately 850% over the past year, pushing the company’s market value north of $1 trillion. The stock climbed another 11-12% following the ADR announcement.

The valuation gap problem

One of the quieter motivations behind this Nasdaq listing is the persistent valuation gap between SK Hynix and its American competitor, Micron Technology. Korean-listed semiconductor companies have historically traded at a discount to their US-listed peers, a phenomenon sometimes called the “Korea discount.”

The scale of this offering also puts it in rare company globally. At $29.4 billion (45.45 trillion won), this isn’t just the largest foreign listing in US history. It would rank among the largest share sales anywhere, period. For context, Saudi Aramco’s 2019 IPO raised about $25.6 billion in its initial offering, though that was on the Saudi exchange.

What this means for investors

The risk side of the equation is straightforward. SK Hynix is betting that AI-driven demand for HBM will continue to grow at a pace that justifies spending tens of billions on new fabrication capacity. If AI spending slows, or if competitors like Samsung close the technology gap faster than expected, those shiny new fabs become very expensive paperweights.

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