SK Hynix is set to make its long-awaited debut on the Nasdaq, giving U.S. investors direct access to South Korea’s second most valuable company for the first time.
The company priced its American depositary receipts at $149 per share, raising $26.5 billion to fund an aggressive expansion into new factories and equipment.
Demand for the U.S. offering ran at seven times the available shares, signaling unusually strong investor enthusiasm heading into the listing.
The IPO is widely regarded as the largest-ever U.S. stock listing by a foreign company, a milestone that underscores the global appetite for AI-related investments.
SK Hynix has become one of the AI industry’s most strategically critical suppliers, thanks to its leadership in high-bandwidth memory chips used alongside AI accelerators from Nvidia and AMD.
Demand for HBM chips has consistently outpaced supply, giving memory manufacturers some of the strongest pricing power the industry has seen in years.
Given that backdrop, many market observers expect SKHY to open well above its $149 offering price when trading begins on Friday.
Investors eager for a pure-play AI investment may view the stock as a way to diversify beyond hyperscalers and GPU makers that have dominated portfolios for the past two years.
UBS has told clients to expect a premium, backing an ADR premium trade ahead of the debut, adding institutional weight to already-robust retail enthusiasm.
The listing will also test whether SK Hynix can shed the so-called “Korea discount,” a tendency of South Korean companies to trade at lower valuations than global peers due to corporate governance concerns and opaque conglomerate structures.
LSEG data shows SK Hynix currently trades at just 4.8 times 12-month forward earnings, compared with an industry median of 29.84 times and U.S. rival Micron Technology’s 6.6 times.
That valuation gap is striking given SK Hynix’s dominant position in the HBM market, which sits at the heart of the global AI infrastructure buildout.
A successful Nasdaq listing could help close that discount by expanding the company’s shareholder base and improving its visibility among global institutional investors.
Despite the excitement, history offers a cautionary note, as large IPOs have frequently disappointed investors during their first year of trading after debuting at elevated valuations.
