The largest foreign IPO in history. SK Hynix enters Nasdaq on Friday, aiming to raise $28 billion.
While we debate whether AI is a bubble or not, the South Korean memory maker is preparing one of the biggest capital operations of all time.
SK Hynix $HY9H.F will begin trading on Nasdaq on Friday under the ticker $SKHY. The offering includes 177.9 million American depositary shares (ADS), each representing one-tenth of a common share. The company aims to raise $28 billion, making it the largest foreign listing in the history of U.S. markets.
The reference price is approximately $158 per ADS, giving the entire company a market capitalization of around $1.2 trillion at that price. Demand is more than seven times the supply.
Why now and why America?
The answer is very simple. Money will go where it is needed most, namely into production capacity. The company intends to use the proceeds from the offering to expand manufacturing plants in South Korea and to purchase EUV lithography machines, for which it will pay ASML $ASML roughly $7.8 billion.
At the same time, it is a way to make the shares accessible to U.S. investors. Until now, they had limited options for buying SK Hynix or Samsung shares through U.S. markets. And interest is huge, because the Korean company’s shares have grown 174% over the past six months and an incredible 636% over the past year.
Numbers you don’t often see at other companies
SK Hynix is one of the winners of the current memory crisis. According to its own SEC filing, it holds 56.4% of the HBM chip market, the high-bandwidth memory required by every AI data center. Its key customer is $NVDA.
The last quarter was literally record-breaking in every respect:
- Q1 2026 revenue reached KRW 52.6 trillion (roughly $35.5 billion)
- operating profit KRW 37.6 trillion
- operating margin 72%
- net income KRW 40.3 trillion
- net margin 77%.
Revenue increased by 198% year on year. Not even software companies have such numbers, let alone hardware manufacturers. The company also has a cash position of KRW 35 trillion.
Demand for HBM over the next three years exceeds the company’s production capacity. SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won even stated that the global wafer shortage could last until 2030, because capacity expansion takes four to five years.
Where is the potential problem?
The memory business has historically been extremely cyclical. Just a few years ago, memory makers had negative gross margins and were selling chips below production costs.
Micron $MU does not want to repeat this pattern, so, for example, it is signing five-year strategic contracts with customers who commit to buying a fixed volume of chips with prepayment. Whether this will truly break the boom-bust cycle, nobody knows.
High volatility
Memory stocks fell into a bear market on Tuesday (down more than 20%), so SK Hynix is entering the market at a time when sentiment around the sector has cooled slightly. On the other hand, the shares are trading at just 6.2 times expected earnings, i.e., cheaper than Micron at around 7 times.
What do you think? Will you reach for $SKHY as early as Friday, or would you rather stick with $MU or $NVDA and wait to see how the first week of trading goes? And do you believe the memory cycle will be different this time?