SK Hynix $28B US IPO Draws 7x Demand
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- SK Hynix is set to price its US IPO on the Nasdaq on Friday, offering 177.9 million American depositary shares (each representing 1/10 of a common share) under ticker SKHY, targeting a $28 billion raise described as the largest foreign listing in history with demand running 7x the available shares per Reuters and Bloomberg
- SK Hynix holds 56.4% of the global HBM market per its SEC filing, ahead of Micron and Samsung, with all three serving as Nvidia partners
- Micron is signing 5-year strategic customer agreements with large upfront cash payments, a major shift from the prior 1-year norm, per chief business officer Sumit Sadana
- The memory chip shortage could persist into 2030 because new manufacturing facilities take years to build, even as SK Hynix's Korea-listed shares have surged 174% over six months and 636% over the past year
- Memory stocks fell into a bear market on Tuesday per Yahoo Finance's Jared Blikre, underscoring the industry's history of boom-and-bust cycles
- Patrick Moorhead, founder and CEO of Moor Insights & Strategy, warned that memory makers 'a few years back' had negative gross margins and were selling below cost before pulling back on capex
Why it matters: SK Hynix's $28 billion US listing gives American investors direct access to the dominant HBM supplier for Nvidia's AI chips, in a stock up 636% in a year but within an industry historically prone to boom-bust cycles. Micron's shift to 5-year customer contracts and Tuesday's memory bear market make this a peak-demand, peak-valuation entry point.
