South Korea’s SK Hynix said on Wednesday it plans to raise up to 45.45 trillion won (about $29.43 billion) through an American Depositary Receipt listing on the Nasdaq, in what would rank as the largest foreign-issuer ADR offering on a US exchange to date. The maker of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for AI accelerators set a listing date of July 10, 2026 and named four bulge-bracket banks as deal managers, according to Reuters.
If priced at the upper end of the range, the deal would top the $25.0 billion base raise (about $28.75 billion including the greenshoe) that Alibaba pulled off in its September 2014 NYSE debut — the previous benchmark for the largest foreign-issuer US offering. The size also dwarfs every Korean ADS listing on record, including Coupang’s $4.55 billion 2021 NYSE IPO.
Deal terms at a glance
| Term | Detail |
|---|---|
| Maximum raise | 45.45 trillion won / $29.43 billion |
| Exchange | Nasdaq |
| Listing date | July 10, 2026 |
| New shares issued | 17.79 million common shares |
| ADR ratio | 10 ADRs = 1 common share |
| Joint deal managers | BofA Securities, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan |
| Home listing | KOSPI (ticker 000660) |
| Pricing | To be set via bookbuilding; final amount may change |
The 17.79 million new common shares translate into roughly 177.9 million Nasdaq-listed ADRs at the 10-to-1 ratio — a meaningful float from day one and a sized-for-index-eligibility raise, not a small toe-in-the-water cross-listing.
Why a Korean memory giant wants US capital now
SK Hynix is the world’s largest supplier of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) — the stacked DRAM that sits next to Nvidia, AMD and Google AI accelerators. Demand has run ahead of supply since 2023, and earlier this month the company overtook Samsung Electronics to become South Korea’s most valuable listed company, a first since the 1990s.
That position has created two problems the ADR listing aims to solve at once:
- The capex bill keeps growing. SK Hynix has already committed to multi-trillion-won fab expansions to feed Nvidia’s HBM3E and HBM4 ramp, plus the new advanced-packaging line where the stacks are assembled.
- The investor base is too narrow. Index passive flows, US growth funds and AI-themed ETFs have struggled to own SK Hynix at scale because the home listing trades only on the KOSPI in won. A Level III ADR program with a sized free float on Nasdaq lets those pools buy it directly.
Where the $29 billion goes
The company earmarked the proceeds for three buckets:
- The Yongin chip fab cluster. SK Hynix is anchor tenant for the Yongin semiconductor mega-cluster, a Korean government-backed project that will eventually house four fabs and dozens of materials suppliers.
- The Cheongju advanced-packaging plant. Stacking HBM dies and bonding them to the Nvidia GPU package is the production bottleneck the market keeps asking about. New capex here is what unlocks 2027 HBM4 volumes.
- EUV lithography equipment. The filing references an additional Extreme Ultraviolet scanner from ASML — the single most expensive line item in any leading-edge fab.
How it stacks up against past mega-listings
The only foreign company that has come close to this size in a single US offering is Alibaba — and even Alibaba’s full greenshoe-inclusive raise was about $700 million smaller than the SK Hynix ceiling. Coupang, the prior largest Korean-issuer US listing, is roughly one-seventh the size.
ADRs in 60 seconds
An American Depositary Receipt is a US-issued, dollar-denominated certificate representing ownership in shares of a foreign company that are held on deposit at a custodian bank. A Level III ADR program — which is what SK Hynix is filing — is fully registered with the SEC, lists on a major US exchange (NYSE or Nasdaq), and can raise new capital, exactly like a domestic IPO. Level II programs list but do not raise capital; Level I trades only over-the-counter. The depositary bank handles the share-to-receipt conversion, the dividend payout in dollars, and the corporate-action plumbing US investors expect.
Underwriter syndicate
BofA Securities, Citigroup Global Markets, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Securities sit on the cover — the full bulge-bracket lineup the largest US deals require for distribution. The four firms collectively distributed the bulk of the post-pandemic mega-IPOs and have the institutional placement reach SK Hynix will need to find buyers for nearly $30 billion of new paper in a single tape.
What to watch into July 10
- Final pricing and the bookbuild. The $29.43 billion is a ceiling, not the deal price. The bookbuilding process, which sets the final ADR price and dollar raise, will dictate how much dilution the KOSPI line absorbs.
- KOSPI 000660 reaction. Watch the Seoul-listed shares between announcement and pricing. A wide premium between KOSPI and the new Nasdaq ADRs would imply arbitrage flows once trading opens.
- Index inclusion timeline. A Nasdaq listing of this size will draw immediate index-construction work from Nasdaq, MSCI and FTSE Russell — passive demand could be material for a float this big.
- HBM4 capex disclosure. The prospectus and Form F-1 / F-6 filings should give the most granular look yet at how the proceeds map to specific 2027 HBM4 capacity.
Sources
- Investing.com / Reuters — “South Korea’s SK Hynix says to raise up to $29 billion in ADR listing” (June 24, 2026)
- SK Hynix Investor Relations — corporate filings and disclosures
- SEC Investor.gov — investor education on American Depositary Receipts and Level I/II/III programs
- Nasdaq Global Listing Services — ADR listing requirements
- Alibaba Group 2014 Form F-1 (SEC EDGAR) — for the $25.0B base / $28.75B post-greenshoe IPO benchmark
- Coupang Inc. 2021 Form F-1 (SEC EDGAR) — for the $4.55B Korean-issuer benchmark
Disclosure: This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed before publication. It is for informational purposes only and is not investment advice.