A South Korean chip maker has raised $26.5bn in the largest ever foreign listing in the United States, with shares surging 17% in their first day of trading on the Nasdaq, lifted by an insatiable demand for artificial intelligence components.
SK Hynix, a key supplier of advanced memory chips to AI giant Nvidia, sold 177.9 million American depositary shares at $149 each. The company’s market capitalisation on Seoul’s Kospi index had already topped $1tn in May, and its share price has more than tripled in South Korea this year. The bumper listing comes after the International Monetary Fund said this week that a global surge in AI infrastructure spending is actively shielding tech-heavy economies from the growth-stifling effects of the war in the Middle East.
“SK Hynix raises $26.5bn in the largest US listing by a foreign firm as AI chip demand fuels a 17% debut surge.”
Investor appetite was ferocious: the offering was more than seven times oversubscribed, allowing SK Hynix to price the shares 2.9% higher than their current level in Seoul rather than offering a traditional discount. “It’s a yardstick to test the water for whether investor enthusiasm for memory chip makers will continue,” said Jaewon Choi, a finance professor at Seoul National University.
The listing gives US investors a way to buy SK Hynix shares without trading on an overseas exchange. Each American depositary share represents a tenth of a Seoul-traded common share. The company has pledged to use the proceeds to develop South Korea’s chip making and AI capabilities.
Shares in rivals Samsung Electronics and Micron have more than doubled in recent months, and all three firms now boast market capitalisations above $1tn – a club previously dominated by American companies. The boom in high-bandwidth memory chips, used in AI servers, has driven profits skyward, but recent weeks have seen tech stocks tumble on fears of overheated valuations. SK Hynix’s Nasdaq debut will be closely watched as a test of whether the rally can continue.
“They’re using the money they’re raising from this US listing to help build more plants,” Choi added. The offering was led by BofA Securities, Citigroup Global Markets, Goldman Sachs (Asia) and JP Morgan Securities. An image of an SK Hynix jacket went viral in South Korea this year as a symbol of wealth and success, with parody posts depicting it as a golden ticket to luxury boutiques or better dating prospects.