SK Hynix, the South Korean semiconductor giant and one of the world’s three largest makers 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 plans to issue 17.79 million new shares in the form of ADRs, aiming to raise up to 45.45 trillion won, equivalent to roughly $29.65 billion. Trading is expected to begin on July 10, though the company has cautioned that the timing could change. The deal would surpass Alibaba’s 2014 debut, until now the all-time record for an offering of this kind.
What is an ADR?
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 these tradable certificates on Wall Street in exchange. For the American investor, it works just like buying an ordinary US-listed stock, with dividends and rights converted into dollars, and no need to worry about currency exchange or foreign investment procedures.
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, custody of the underlying shares falls to the Korea Securities Depository. The offering 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 ranked 13th among the world’s companies by market cap, SK Hynix needs access to capital markets that are «by far the largest and deepest in the world», as Gil Luria of D.A. Davidson told MarketWatch. The listing will let the company raise funds in a market «very interested and inclined to invest in artificial intelligence hardware», at exactly the moment it needs to accelerate spending on production capacity.
On the industrial front, SK Hynix is developing the Yongin semiconductor cluster in South Korea, which is expected to be operational from 2027, and is building its first US production facility, a $4 billion advanced chip-packaging plant in Indiana.
The company itself has said the listing will allow «a proper valuation 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 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 forward earnings respectively, while Hynix sits at 6.97x and Samsung Electronics at just 6.45x. It is a wide discount that, analysts say, 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 narrowing the valuation gap with Micron».
A possible knock-on effect for ETFs
The listing will also have repercussions for the passive fund market. According to Andrew Rocco of Zacks Investment Research, Hynix’s entry into the main US tech and semiconductor indices will force passive ETFs to buy up the ADRs en masse in order not to fall behind their benchmarks. That could put pressure on some funds, which may be forced to trim positions in other names in the sector to make room for the newcomer. Nicholas cautioned, however, 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 prospect of writing options on the US-listed Hynix stock, which could further boost 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, released on 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 fortunes 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 they are exposed to the same dynamics, starting with sharply accelerating demand driven by hyperscalers’ investments in AI infrastructure, against production capacity that, in the words of Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, will not be able 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 much of the global investor base. With the Nasdaq listing, this kind of competitive advantage for Micron is potentially set to 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.
