SK Hynix Lines Up Record ~$28B Nasdaq Listing, the Largest-Ever US IPO by a Foreign Firm
The South Korean memory giant will trade as 'SKHY' from July 10, raising roughly $28-29 billion in American depositary receipts to fund HBM capacity — eclipsing the IPO records set by Alibaba and Saudi Aramco.
SK Hynix is preparing to list on the Nasdaq on July 10 under the ticker SKHY, in an American depositary receipt (ADR) offering set to raise roughly $28-29 billion — what would be the largest-ever US initial public offering by a foreign company, surpassing the records set by Alibaba and Saudi Aramco.
Riding the memory supercycle
The world's leading supplier of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) — the stacked DRAM that feeds Nvidia's AI accelerators — is tapping US markets at the peak of an AI-driven memory boom. The company plans to issue about 17.79 million new shares, with the indicative price hovering around $158-166 per ADR (one domestic common share splits into 10 ADRs).
The proceeds are earmarked squarely for capacity: roughly ₩31 trillion (~$20B) toward the first fab at the Yongin Semiconductor Cluster, ₩19 trillion (~$12B) for the P&T7 advanced-packaging plant in Cheongju, and ₩12 trillion (~$8B) for EUV lithography equipment.
Why it matters
A dual Seoul-Nasdaq presence gives SK Hynix direct access to the deep pool of US capital chasing AI infrastructure, and a dollar-denominated currency for the enormous capex the HBM race now demands. It also plants one of Asia's most strategically important chipmakers firmly on American exchanges — a marker of how central Korean memory has become to the global AI buildout.
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