The Big Bang in New York: SK Hynix Nets $26.5 Billion as Investors Bet on a Narrowing Korea Discount
Published on 07/11/2026 at 06:41 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The huge valuation gap separating SK Hynix from its US rivals has long been a point of contention for shareholders. But the Korean memory giant’s record-shattering debut on the Nasdaq is designed to change that narrative. With a $26.5 billion haul from 177.9 million American Depositary Receipts priced at $149 each, the company now commands a market capitalisation of roughly $1.2 trillion – enough to leapfrog Micron, which sits at around $1.1 trillion. The offering was seven times oversubscribed, with more than 500 institutional investor groups chasing allocations, according to multiple reports. Bank of America, JPMorgan, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs led the syndicate.
On the first day of trading on July 10, 2026, the ADRs opened at $170, a 14% premium to the offer price, and closed at $168.01 after touching an intraday high of $177. The listing is the largest ever by a foreign company on a US exchange, surpassing Alibaba’s 2014 record, and ranks second only to SpaceX among all US flotations. The capital payment is scheduled for July 14, while the underlying shares will continue to trade in Seoul, with an additional listing on the Kospi set for July 29. The ADR ticker will switch from the provisional SKHYV to SKHY on July 13.
Management wasted no time framing the capital raise as a response to an unprecedented supply crunch. CEO Kwak Noh-jung warned that 2027 would be the worst year for memory chip supply, with demand outstripping production well beyond 2030, driven by insatiable appetite for high-bandwidth memory chips used in Nvidia GPUs. Chairman Chey Tae-won went further, stating that customers are demanding five to six times more chips than SK Hynix can currently deliver. He pledged to double wafer production capacity within five years and did not rule out building a factory in the US, provided conditions around energy, water and location are favourable – without compromising investments in South Korea. The proceeds from the ADR sale will be channelled into facilities in Yongin and Cheongju, alongside $8.5 billion of EUV lithography equipment, a $3.87 billion packaging plant in Indiana, and a planned $10 billion stake in a US artificial intelligence solutions company. A stock split, meanwhile, is under consideration, according to Korean media.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SK Hynix?
The company’s strategic positioning is backed by formidable financial momentum. In the first quarter of 2026, SK Hynix posted revenue of 52.6 trillion won, up 198% year on year, and operating profit of 37.6 trillion won, yielding an operating margin of 72%. The full-year 2025 result was a record 97.1 trillion won in revenue and 47.2 trillion won in operating profit. Reuters has estimated second-quarter 2026 operating profit at 65.5 trillion won, while analysts expect full-year 2026 revenue to triple to roughly $235 billion. The company held a net cash position of 54 trillion won at the end of the first quarter, according to Futurum Group.
Yet the valuation discount remains stubbornly wide. SK Hynix trades at 4.8 times expected earnings, compared with a sector median of 29.84 and Micron’s 6.6 times – a gap that analysts attribute in part to what is often termed the “Korea discount”. KB Securities expects a re-rating akin to the trajectory of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, though BNK Securities sees short-term effects on the home market as largely neutral. Capital intensity tells a similar story: SK Hynix spends about 11% of revenue on capital expenditure, versus 21% at Micron, 25–30% at Samsung and roughly 77% at Chinese rival CXMT. The new Nasdaq listing is expected to narrow – but not eliminate – that gap over time.
Back in Seoul, the reception has been more subdued, highlighting the tension between the New York triumph and domestic caution. The stock closed at 2,180,000 won on the day of the US debut, slipping 0.27%, with foreign investors net sellers on the Kospi. The weekly loss stands at 10.10%, though the share price remains up 6.45% over 30 days and has surged 222.01% since the start of the year. From the all-time high of 2,987,000 won reached on June 25, the stock has retreated about 27%, while its 52-week low from October 2025 sits at 245,000 won. The relative strength index of 46.1 points to a neutral market stance, but the annualised 30-day volatility of nearly 115% underscores the ferocious swings that have accompanied the listing. Two leveraged Nasdaq products have already been announced in the wake of the debut, a sign of the speculative fervour swirling around the company’s new dual-listed status.
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