Chip giant SK Hynix raises $26.5bn in mega US share sale
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SK Hynix
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 company, a key supplier to artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant Nvidia, said 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, said 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
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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
The company has pledged major investments to develop South Korea’s chip making and AI capabilities in the coming years
The country’s government is likely to be counting on SK Hynix’s US listing to raise funds that can support the firm’s domestic investments, said Hanyang University <a href="https://todaytrendnews7.com/ohio-named-cnbcs-no-1-top-state-for-business/” title=”Ohio Named CNBC's No. 1 Top State for Business”>business professor Yun Youngjin
But the Nasdaq listing carries some risks, especially if investors move money towards the US and away from South Korea’s stock market, Yun added
In June, the country’s government unveiled plans for more than $880bn of investments in partnership with SK Hynix and Samsung
Both SK Hynix and Samsung have stock market valuations of more that $1tn, joining growing group of firms which includes tech giants Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft and Google-owner Alphabet
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