South Korean computer chip maker SK Hynix has raised $26.5bn (£19.8bn) in its New York share offering, marking the largest ever listing by a foreign firm in the US.
The report indicates that south Korean computer chip maker SK Hynix has raised $26.5bn (£19.8bn) in its New York share offering, marking the largest ever listing by a foreign firm in the US.
It further notes that the company, a key supplier to artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant Nvidia, stated on Thursday that it had sold 177.9 million American depositary shares for $149 each. The shares are set to begin trading on Friday on the Nasdaq.
SK Hynix saw its market value top $1tn in its home country in May, lifted by the boom in demand for AI chips.
Its share price has more than tripled in South Korea this year, which, along with Samsung Electronics, has helped boost the benchmark Kospi index by more than 70% over the same period.
SK Hynix is one of the world’s leading memory chip makers. The industry has been given a major boost by the hundreds of billions being spent on AI.
Shares in rivals Samsung Electronics and Micron have more than doubled in recent months.
The US listing gives SK Hynix easier access to huge amounts of potential investment from the world’s biggest economy, which has fewer barriers than South Korea, stated Seoul National University finance professor Jaewon Choi.
Traders are closely watching the listing as a “yardstick to test the water” for whether investor enthusiasm for memory chip makers will continue, Choi said.
The AI boom has triggered a rush of companies raising money on the the stock market.
In June, GrokAI owner SpaceX became the world’s biggest ever listing as it raised $85.7bn.
Meanwhile, AI developers Anthropic and OpenAI are preparing to go public, with valuations of more $1tn.
Demand for SK Hynix’s offering was reportedly over seven times more than the number of shares available, highlighting the strong investor appetite for a key company in the AI supply chain.
Each American depositary share is equivalent to a tenth of a Seoul-traded common share, SK Hynix said.
The offering gives US investors a way to buy SK Hynix shares without having to trade via an overseas stock exchange.
