#SK海力士ADR指导价149美元 SK Hynix sets its offering price, raising about $26.5 billion and breaking records

SK Hynix ADR offering priced at $149 per share. The ADR is expected to begin trading on Nasdaq today, with proceeds totaling $26.5 billion.

According to The Paper (Jiemian News), on July 9 local time, SK Hynix raised $26.5 billion through the issuance of American depositary shares (ADS), becoming the largest-ever first public offering (IPO) in the U.S. by a foreign company by offering size. SK Hynix priced 177.9 million ADS at $149 per share. The ADS will begin trading on Nasdaq on July 10 under the ticker “SKHYV.”

Securities Times reported that among the world’s three largest memory chip makers, currently only Micron Technology is listed on U.S. equities. SK Hynix’s Nasdaq listing will directly change this landscape, enabling U.S. investors to participate in investment opportunities in the storage-chip giant in a frictionless manner during normal trading hours.

Di Zhou, portfolio manager at Thornburg Investment Management, said the offering targets investors who currently cannot access the South Korean stock market. SK Hynix’s Nasdaq listing provides direct, frictionless exposure to what is considered the most attractive pure-play during the AI memory cycle.

According to Caixin (Cailian News), the issuance comes as SK Hynix and its competitor, Micron Technology, have seen their share prices swing sharply recently. As market enthusiasm for investments in AI infrastructure has cooled, the semiconductor sector has shown significant volatility.

SK Hynix’s share price on Thursday had fallen by about 25% from its all-time closing high set at the end of June, but its year-to-date cumulative gain still exceeds two times.

SK Hynix plans to sell 177.9 million ADR shares, corresponding to 17.79 million shares of common stock. Earlier in the day, there were reports that the offering has already received more than seven times oversubscription.

Insiders previously said that the issuance attracted strong subscription interest from institutional funds including global long-term funds, technology-industry-focused funds, sovereign wealth funds, and international investors focused on the Asian market.

The offering is led by joint bookrunners Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan, with nine additional financial institutions participating as underwriters. SK Hynix also received indications of ADR purchase interest totaling up to about $7 billion from institutions including Baillie Gifford, Coatue Management, and Situational Awareness Partners.

At the same time, driven by a government-led industrial support plan in South Korea with a total scale of about $880 billion, SK Hynix and its long-term competitor Samsung Electronics are expected to further increase investments in South Korea.

Per the schedule, SK Hynix ADR will start “pre-trading” (when-issued trading) on the Nasdaq Global Select market on Friday under the code SKHYV, and will begin official trading on July 13. The stock code will change to SKHY.

During today’s trading session, the Korean KOSPI index’s gains expanded to 5%.

Due to a 5% rise in KOSPI 200 index futures, Korean exchanges initiated a temporary KOSPI trading halt mechanism and paused algorithmic buying for 5 minutes.

As of midday on the 10th, Samsung Electronics is up more than 6%, and SK Hynix is up nearly 3%.