Shares in South Korean chip maker SK Hynix soared as much as 17% on their first day of trading on the Nasdaq on Friday, after the company raised $26.5bn (£19.8bn) in the largest ever foreign listing in the US. The company, a key supplier to AI chip giant Nvidia, sold 177.9 million American depositary shares at $149 each, marking a 2.9% premium over its Seoul stock price rather than the traditional discount, as demand was reportedly more than seven times the number of shares available. Each American depositary share is equivalent to one-tenth of a common share traded in Seoul.
SK Hynix’s market value topped $1tn in its home country in May, lifted by the boom in demand for AI chips. Its share price has more than tripled in South Korea this year, helping to boost the benchmark Kospi index by more than 70% alongside Samsung Electronics. Rivals Samsung and Micron have more than doubled in recent months. The International Monetary Fund said this week that a global surge in AI infrastructure spending is actively shielding tech-heavy economies, including South Korea, from the growth-stifling effects of the war in the Middle East.
“SK Hynix raises record $26.5bn in US listing; shares surge 17% on Nasdaq debut.”
The US listing gives SK Hynix easier access to huge amounts of potential investment from the world’s biggest economy, which has fewer barriers than South Korea, said Jaewon Choi, a finance professor at Seoul National University. Traders are closely watching the listing as a “yardstick to test the water” for whether investor enthusiasm for memory chip makers will continue, Choi added.
The AI boom has triggered a rush of companies raising money on the stock market. In June, GrokAI owner SpaceX became the world’s biggest ever listing as it raised $85.7bn. Meanwhile, AI developers Anthropic and OpenAI are preparing to go public, with valuations of more than $1tn.
SK Hynix has pledged major investments to develop South Korea’s chip making and AI capabilities in the coming years. “They’re using the money they’re raising from this US listing to help build more pl…” the company said, in a statement that trailed off, underscoring the scale of its ambitions.