SK Hynix Ties Kioxia Windfall to Special Dividend While Washington Licence Logjam Clouds US Expansion
Published on 11/09/2026 at 11:20 | Editorial boerse-global.de
SK Hynix has told shareholders it will hand back profits from its Kioxia stake through a special dividend, pairing that pledge with a decision to shelve a planned listing of its Solidigm subsidiary. The announcement lands alongside a broader strategic housekeeping effort in the United States, where the memory maker is preparing a fresh round of executive appointments and an operational reshuffle around 3 December, complete with an expansion of its American headcount.
According to the SK Group, the US changes are designed to pull AI customers such as Nvidia deeper into early-stage development work. Yet the company's American ambitions are running into a licensing bottleneck. SK Hynix said on Wednesday that it continues to bring US-made equipment into its Dalian plant under an existing export licence, and that talks over a permit for the coming year are still under way.
The licence question has a history. Reuters reported on 3 November, citing people familiar with the matter, that US authorities had not yet approved additional export licences for American chipmaking tools intended for capacity expansion at Dalian. That delay, the report said, complicated a Solidigm investment proposal of roughly $45 billion for two NAND plants in Marcy, New York — with SK Hynix reportedly intending to use higher output in Dalian to help finance the US build-out.
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SK Hynix pushed back on Wednesday, stating that no concrete investment plan for a US fab had been finalised. Neither the reported investment nor any specific US production site had been confirmed by the company.
On the demand side, the picture is tighter. SK Hynix said on 28 October that demand was outstripping supply, with long-term agreements covering more than 50% of production capacity for 2027–2028. Management expects the memory shortage to persist until 2030. Industry figures told media on Friday they saw no sign of customers cancelling supply contracts with SK Hynix or trimming order volumes.
The financials behind that order book are substantial. For the third quarter of 2026, SK Hynix reported revenue of 104.6 trillion won, operating profit of 83.3 trillion won and net profit of 39.8 trillion won.
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