On July 6, SK Hynix, the world’s second-largest memory chip maker, officially launched the promotional roadshow for its US listing.
According to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, SK Hynix plans to issue 17.79 million American Depositary Shares in its US IPO. Each ADS represents one-tenth of a common share with a par value of 5,000 Korean won. Based on the stock’s closing price on the Seoul exchange last Friday, the company estimates the net proceeds to be roughly 43.14 trillion won, which translates to about $28 billion. Cornerstone investors have already indicated they’re looking to snap up as much as $7 billion worth of these ADSs.
By the time the market closed in Korea on July 6, the stock had dipped 3.38% to 2,343,000 won per share. Still, it’s up a staggering 260.63% year-to-date.
Earlier chatter suggested the fundraising could hit 45.45 trillion won, or roughly $29 billion. But the Korean semiconductor sector has been cooling off over the past two weeks, with SK Hynix’s local share price pulling back about 5%. Taking a practical look at the liquidity environment, the company decided to trim the expected ADS offering size down to $28 billion to balance demand and keep the stock from swinging wildly.
This is a blue-chip underwriting lineup if I’ve ever seen one. The offering is being jointly led by four global heavyweights: Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, and Citigroup. Top-tier Korean brokerages are also in the mix. Citibank is acting as the depositary for the ADR issuance, while the Korea Securities Depository handles the custody of the underlying common shares. The whole setup is designed to build a seamless trading and settlement system across major global capital markets.
The underwriting syndicate will lock in the final price this Thursday, and SK Hynix’s American Depositary Receipts are expected to start trading on July 10 under the ticker symbol SKHY. This week, the management team is hitting the road, holding institutional investor meetings and massive roadshows across North America, Europe, and Asia.
Based on the current proposed size, this ADR offering is poised to crash the top three largest IPOs in global history. Let’s put that in perspective: SpaceX just completed an $85.7 billion fundraising in June, making it the undisputed number one. That’s followed by Saudi Aramco’s $25.6 billion back in 2019 and Alibaba’s $25 billion in 2014. If SK Hynix fills this deal at full size, it would leapfrog right into the second spot globally. It would also set a new record as the largest IPO ever by a foreign company on the US capital markets.
The early feedback from institutional investors is pretty telling. Big-name global tech growth funds like Baillie Gifford and Coatue have already submitted letters of intent, with their combined planned subscriptions potentially reaching $7 billion, which accounts for a quarter of the total fundraising target.
Now, where’s all this cash going? It’s not just a blank check. The company has a clear industrial roadmap. Every penny of the proceeds will be poured into expanding advanced production capacity for memory chips and procuring core equipment. The key investment blocks include the first-phase construction of the massive Yongin Semiconductor Cluster in Korea, expanding the Cheongju seventh-generation advanced packaging line, and the bulk purchase of high-end manufacturing gear like ASML’s EUV lithography machines. They’re also setting up overseas packaging capacity in parallel, with a sharp focus on boosting output of the highly sought-after HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) chips. The goal is to ease the supply crunch that’s choking the global AI large model and computing server supply chains.
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won has publicly stated that the US ADR listing can open a channel to a diverse, global shareholder base, further strengthening the company’s global operational DNA and reducing the risk of valuation distortions caused by volatility in a single regional market.
I think the market generally sees this not just as a capital raise, but as a core strategic move by SK Hynix to trigger a global re-rating of its valuation and broaden its capital channels. Right now, SK Hynix is trading at 6.2 times its forward 12-month price-to-earnings ratio, which is below the 7 times multiple of its American peer Micron Technology. And keep in mind, before June 22, Micron’s valuation had once soared past 11 times.
Once it lands on the Nasdaq, SK Hynix is expected to be eligible for inclusion in the Nasdaq 100 index. That would trigger systematic buying from passive funds and attract arbitrage players to dance between the ADR and the Korean local shares, ultimately nudging its valuation closer to its US peers.
Currently, SK Hynix, Samsung Electronics, and Micron Technology are the three dominant suppliers in the global HBM market, holding a critical position in the global AI infrastructure buildout. Their products have become a major bottleneck for data center expansion.
As the core HBM memory supplier for the world’s top AI players like NVIDIA, Google, and Microsoft, SK Hynix has seen its performance explode in 2026. Its local stock price has surged over 260% this year, and HBM product orders are already booked solid through the second half of 2027.
On June 30, NUPIAO learned that semiconductor inspection equipment vendors are fiercely competing for orders for SK Hynix’s “P&T7” HBM factory in Cheongju, a deal potentially worth up to 400 billion won. Given that the lead time for inspection equipment parts has stretched to over a year, the two sides have already started verbal negotiations for the supply of about 200 units a year in advance. The P&T7 line is primarily dedicated to making AI memory like HBM4, and its wafer testing line is expected to be completed by October 2027.
SK Hynix announced on July 2 that it plans to invest a jaw-dropping 100 trillion won in a massive expansion in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, to ease the chip shortage ignited by the AI boom. The detailed plan shows that SK Hynix will break ground on a brand-new fab, “M17,” next year, and expects to invest 80 trillion won (about $51.46 billion) by 2029 for NAND flash memory production. Meanwhile, the company also plans to pour in an additional 20 trillion won before the end of 2027 to build a new advanced chip packaging facility in the same city.
Global HBM supply remains extremely tight right now. Samsung and SK Hynix are locking in long-term customer orders ahead of time, so a massive short-term oversupply risk doesn’t seem to be on the table. However, a few cautious analysts are waving a yellow flag. The semiconductor industry is notoriously cyclical. If AI capital expenditure slows down later on, a drop in memory demand will directly hit the company’s earnings forecasts.
