SK Hynix, the South Korean semiconductor giant and one of the world’s three largest producers of high-bandwidth memory (HBM), is preparing to land on the Nasdaq with what is shaping up to be the largest American Depositary Receipt offering in history. According to filings submitted to regulators, the company aims to issue 17.79 million new shares in the form of ADRs, with the goal of raising up to 45.45 trillion won, equivalent to roughly $29.65 billion. Trading is expected to begin on July 10, though the company has noted that the timing could be subject to change. The deal would surpass Alibaba’s 2014 debut, until now the all-time record for an offering of this kind.
Good to know. An American Depositary Receipt (ADR) is a certificate issued by a US bank that represents the shares of a foreign company, allowing American investors to buy them directly in dollars on the US market without having to access foreign exchanges. In practice, the bank buys the original shares, holds them in custody, and issues in exchange these negotiable certificates that trade on Wall Street. For the American investor it is like buying an ordinary US-listed stock, with dividends and rights converted into dollars, and no need to worry about currency exchange or the procedures of investing abroad.
The designated depositary bank for SK Hynix’s ADRs is Citibank, which will handle issuing the certificates for the US market. On the Korean side, the role of custodian for the underlying shares falls to the Korea Securities Depository. The deal is also being managed by four major banks acting as joint lead underwriters: Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan.
Why is SK Hynix listing on Wall Street?
With a market capitalization above $1 trillion and ranking 13th among the world’s largest companies by market cap, SK Hynix needs access to capital markets that are «by far the deepest and broadest in the world», as Gil Luria of D.A. Davidson told MarketWatch. The listing will let the company raise resources in a market «very interested in and inclined to invest in hardware for artificial intelligence», precisely at the moment when it needs to accelerate spending on production capacity.
On the industrial front, SK Hynix is developing the Yongin semiconductor cluster in South Korea, expected to be operational from 2027, and is building its first manufacturing plant in the United States, a $4 billion advanced chip-packaging facility in Indiana.
The company itself has stated that the listing will allow «a proper assessment of its true corporate value» and will strengthen its position by «expanding its points of contact in the United States, the epicenter of technological innovation in the field of artificial intelligence».
The valuation gap
One of the explicit goals of the listing is to close the valuation gap that separates SK Hynix from its American peers. According to Dow Jones Market Data, Sandisk and Micron trade at 10.47x and 9.46x expected earnings respectively, while Hynix sits at 6.97x and Samsung Electronics at just 6.45x. It is a wide discount that, according to analysts, reflects the limited accessibility of the stock for global investors rather than the fundamental quality of the business.
David Nicholas of Nicholas Wealth Management expects a re-rating of Hynix’s multiple thanks to broader analyst coverage and a wider base of institutional investors, factors that «will help fuel buying» in the first weeks after the debut. Rolf Bulk of Futurum Group agrees:
«We believe the ADR listing is primarily aimed at broadening investor access to the US market and at narrowing the valuation gap with Micron».
A possible knock-on effect for ETFs
The listing will also have repercussions on the passive-fund market. According to Andrew Rocco of Zacks Investment Research, Hynix’s entry into the main US tech and semiconductor indexes will force passive ETFs to buy ADRs en masse so as not to fall behind their benchmarks. And this could create pressure on some funds, which may be forced to trim positions in other names in the sector to make room for the newcomer. Nicholas nonetheless clarified that the listing does not automatically mean investors will sell their ETFs to buy Hynix shares, partly because of the tax burden such a move would entail. Also worth watching is the possibility of writing options on the US-listed Hynix stock, which could further increase its appeal by offering downside-protection tools.
What’s behind the post-Micron rally?
Adding further momentum to the deal were Micron’s quarterly results, published Wednesday. The American producer’s revenue more than quadrupled in its fiscal third quarter, confirming that the HBM chip market remains structurally short of supply. Micron shares closed the extended session up nearly 16%, dragging the entire sector higher. SK Hynix responded with a jump of more than 12% on the Seoul exchange in the same day’s session, again confirming how closely the fates of the two companies are intertwined.
Micron and SK Hynix are in fact the two main rivals in the HBM memory market, alongside Samsung, and are exposed to the same dynamics, starting with rapidly accelerating demand driven by hyperscalers’ investments in AI infrastructure, against production capacity that, in the words of Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, will not manage to keep pace with demand even in 2028.
The main difference between the two lies, for now, in «geography»: Micron is the pure-play entry point for American investors on the memory theme thanks to its US listing back in 1984, while SK Hynix, until now confined to the Korean exchange, has remained out of reach for most global investors. With the Nasdaq listing, this kind of competitive advantage for Micron is set to potentially shrink.
Editor’s note
This article was originally published in Italian on money.it by Flavia Provenzani on June 25, 2026 as «SK Hynix al Nasdaq, verso il dual listing da $30 miliardi che punta a cambiare il mercato dei chip». It has been translated and adapted for an international audience by the Money.it International desk.
