Arya News - SK hynix’s ADRs opened at $170, 14 percent above the $149 offer price, and climbed further in early trading as investors showed strong demand.
SEOUL – SK hynix entered the US stock market Friday with a strong trading debut, opening a new channel to global investors after completing a record $26.5 billion share offering.
The chipmaker’s American depositary receipts opened at $170 on the Nasdaq, about 14 percent above their $149 offer price. They traded at $175.42 as of 12:05 p.m. in New York, up 17.7 percent from the offering price, after reaching an intraday high of $176.37.
The debut gave investors their first public-market measure of demand for direct exposure to SK hynix, the world’s leading supplier of high-bandwidth memory for artificial intelligence computing.
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, SK hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung and other senior executives marked the listing with an opening-bell ceremony at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York’s Times Square.
Kwak called it a “truly historic day” for the company.
“HBM stands at the heart of the AI revolution,” he said, adding that the listing would bring SK hynix closer to the customers, partners and investors shaping the next generation of computing.
Chey later said demand for advanced memory would grow “exponentially” and suggested SK hynix could issue more US-listed shares if the company delivers stronger returns and attracts further investor demand.
“The first thing we have to do is keep the stock price stable, and then hopefully in the long run we can have the upside potential,” he told Bloomberg Television.
Chey also said SK Group has plans to invest substantially more in the United States, beyond the more than $35 billion it has already committed. He did not provide a figure or timetable.
The group has invested in US battery operations and is developing an advanced semiconductor packaging facility in Indiana.
Chey also floated a possible “memory as a service” model that could allow customers to pay for access to memory capacity instead of buying chips outright. He did not explain how the model would operate, saying new software would be required to support it.
The idea remains at an early stage, but Chey said it could offer another way to address bottlenecks in memory supply.
SK hynix sold 177.9 million ADRs at $149 each, with every 10 receipts representing one common share traded in Seoul. The offer price was about 2.9 percent above the company’s Thursday closing price in Korea, an unusual premium for a large equity sale.
Orders during book-building exceeded the available ADRs by more than seven times, according to Bloomberg. Baillie Gifford, Coatue Management and Situational Awareness Partners were allocated about $5 billion of the offering as cornerstone investors, the news agency reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
The deal surpassed Alibaba’s $25 billion New York listing in 2014, making it the largest US share offering by a foreign company.
The strong opening came despite recent volatility in semiconductor stocks. SK hynix’s Seoul-listed shares have fallen about 25 percent from their June record as investors reassess the durability and eventual returns of spending on AI infrastructure.
On Friday, the Korean shares rose more than 5 percent to an intraday high of 2.305 million won before reversing course. They closed 0.27 percent lower at 2.18 million won as investors took profits.
At $175.42, the ADRs were trading well above both the offer price and the value implied by the Seoul close. The gap reflects strong US demand, though limits and delays in converting Korean shares into ADRs may also allow the two securities to trade at different prices.
SK hynix plans to use the proceeds to expand production in Korea, including its first fabrication plant at the Yongin semiconductor cluster, an advanced packaging facility in Cheongju and purchases of extreme ultraviolet lithography equipment.
The ADRs are trading on a when-issued basis under the temporary ticker SKHYV. The symbol is scheduled to change to SKHY when regular-way trading begins Monday, with settlement expected Tuesday.
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