Chip giant SK Hynix raises $26.5bn in mega US share sale
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- SK Hynix raised $26.5bn (£19.8bn) in its New York share offering — the largest ever US listing by a foreign firm — by selling 177.9 million American depositary shares at $149 each, with trading set to begin Friday on the Nasdaq
- SK Hynix is a key supplier to AI chip giant Nvidia and one of the world's largest manufacturers of advanced memory chips used in AI infrastructure such as data centres
- SK Hynix saw its market value top $1tn in South Korea in May, with its domestic share price more than tripling year-to-date
- Samsung Electronics alongside SK Hynix has helped drive South Korea's benchmark Kospi index up more than 70% this year
- Investor demand for the offering was reportedly more than seven times the shares available, highlighting intense appetite for a core AI supply-chain company
Why it matters: SK Hynix now has direct access to the world's deepest pool of capital without forcing US investors through overseas exchanges — a structural advantage as memory-chip demand from AI data centres keeps outpacing supply. The $1tn Korean valuation and triple-digit share-price gains show the market was already pricing in the AI memory boom; the US listing simply lets global investors own it more easily.
