SK Hynix US listing raises $26.5bn at $149 a share

SK Hynix raised $26.5 billion in its US share sale after pricing its Nasdaq ADRs at $149 apiece, completing the largest US listing by a foreign issuer. Trading is due to begin on Friday. The offer was priced about 2.7 per cent above SK Hynix’s Seoul close, Reuters reported.

The book was more than seven times covered, shifting the test from allocation to the first public trades. The premium to Seoul gives SK Hynix an immediate read on what US capital will pay for a local line in an AI-memory leader. Friday’s session should show whether the demand came from long-only buyers or from faster money drawn to a scarce record deal.

Deal size is doing more work than the headline suggests. MarketWatch argued the sale may rank second only to SpaceX among equity offerings, putting SK Hynix in a narrow group of transactions that test how much US equity capital can absorb at once. The Nasdaq line also reaches a wider specialist investor base than Seoul alone can offer while AI-linked semiconductor exposure remains one of the market’s tighter trades.

That is why investors quoted in Reuters’ reaction roundup sounded less interested in the mechanics of clearing the book than in the valuation after-effect. Richard Clode of Janus Henderson said the listing gives global investors who cannot easily buy Korean shares direct access to SK Hynix, which he called the global leader in high-bandwidth memory. Sam Konrad of Jupiter Asset Management said the ADR could trade at a premium to the local shares and help re-rate the Korean-listed stock.

The valuation argument has room because the stock still trades below its closest US reference point. MarketWatch’s analysis put SK Hynix at about 5.5 times forward earnings, against roughly 6.66 times for Micron Technology (MU). A lasting New York premium could narrow that gap even before any shift in the company’s earnings outlook.

Aftermarket test

Oversubscription answers only the first question. Investors have shown they wanted a large AI-memory name in New York. They have not shown how much support the stock can hold once the book-runners step back and price discovery moves from a controlled sale to a public market screen. Turnover, the opening premium and the relationship between the ADR line and the Seoul stock will matter more than the size of the raise once trading starts.

Giuseppe Sette of Reflexivity said SK Hynix chose Nasdaq to tap AI demand and the higher valuations US chip names command versus Seoul. A strong ADR debut would give other foreign sellers evidence that a US listing can still deliver fresh capital, deeper liquidity and a valuation reset in the right sector. A weak one would show the order book was real but more conditional than it looked.

The backdrop is already selective. Reuters reported that investors see a tougher market behind the success of the deal, which means later issuers may face a higher bar even with growth stories that look fashionable on paper. SK Hynix has converted the week’s frenzy into $26.5 billion of proceeds and a live US benchmark for AI-linked capital raising. The next verdict arrives on the screen.