# SK Hynix Raises $26.5 Billion in Biggest Foreign Debut in US

An episode of [Bloomberg Daybreak: Asia Edition](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1663863437), 10 Jul 2026, 16 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/58e85be7-dbb5-4043-afed-af80014dc0b3/e9144061-2795-4de0-92c6-b483003040ec/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=27143354-63aa-4ac5-965d-af80014dc0d3

Business and finance news from the Asia-Pacific. SK Hynix Inc. raised $26.5 billion in its American depositary receipt offering, as the South Korean memory chipmaker powered through volatility to deliver the largest ever US first-time share sale by a foreign company. The company sold 177.9 million ADRs for $149 each, according to a statement confirming an earlier Bloomberg News report. Each ADR is equivalent to a 10th of a Seoul-traded common share. At $26.5 billion, the offering tops Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s US debut to become the third biggest listing in history, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. We speak to Lianting Tu, Bloomberg's Managing Editor for Asia Equities. And for more analysis on SK Hynix, Bloomberg TV host Shery Ahn spoke to Brendan Burke, Research Director, Semiconductors, Supply Chain & Emerging Tech at the Futurum Group. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
[0:10] Speaker 2: Welcome to the Daybreak Asia podcast. I'm Dog Krisner. In
[0:14] Speaker 2: the US session, the equity market advanced on a resurgence
[0:17] Speaker 2: among chip makers. We had shares in Micron Technology rising
[0:21] Speaker 2: by four and a half percent. That was after the
[0:23] Speaker 2: company announced plans to increase spending on new plants in
[0:26] Speaker 2: the US to the tune of two hundred and fifty
[0:29] Speaker 2: billion dollars. And we had the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index climbing
[0:33] Speaker 2: about three percent. For a closer look at some of
[0:36] Speaker 2: the price action that we're seeing in the Asian session,
[0:39] Speaker 2: let's bring in Bloomberg's Leonting II. Leonting is Managing editor
[0:43] Speaker 2: for Asia Markets. She joins from our studio in Singapore.
[0:47] Speaker 2: You and I have spoken so much lately about this
[0:51] Speaker 2: insatiable appetite for memory chips, especially high bandwidth memory used
[0:56] Speaker 2: in AI applications, which takes us to the story on
[1:00] Speaker 2: sk Heinex. The ADRs that will trade here in the
[1:04] Speaker 2: US on Friday have been priced at one forty nine,
[1:07] Speaker 2: but we're seeing a little bit of weakness right now
[1:09] Speaker 2: in Seoul and shares of sk Heinex. Give me your
[1:12] Speaker 2: sense of what the market is feeling about this offering
[1:15] Speaker 2: in the US.
[1:17] Speaker 3: Yeah, my senses, people are feeling quite excited about being
[1:22] Speaker 3: able to get direct access to its shares listed in
[1:27] Speaker 3: the US. And the pricing that was revealed a few
[1:31] Speaker 3: hours ago three percent premium over the Korean listener ships
[1:36] Speaker 3: was also considered quite quite appealing and relatively reasonable. The
[1:42] Speaker 3: stock itself, as we all know, has been very volatile,
[1:46] Speaker 3: but the fact that they're able to price at a
[1:49] Speaker 3: premium to the Korean shares, it shows that the company
[1:52] Speaker 3: is actually quite confident about the investor demand and about
[1:57] Speaker 3: how the shares are going to trade in the US US.
[2:01] Speaker 3: So I would say, you know, it also shows global investors,
[2:06] Speaker 3: despite all the volatility and valuation scrutiny that we have seen,
[2:10] Speaker 3: they there's a still enormous demand for a very clear
[2:15] Speaker 3: AI infrastructure winner like sk Heinex.
[2:19] Speaker 2: Our colleague Ian King, who covers the semiconductor industry from
[2:22] Speaker 2: San Francisco, was calling the story on sk Heinex rags
[2:26] Speaker 2: to riches. Let's remember this company was in trouble at
[2:29] Speaker 2: one time and it came very close to being taken
[2:32] Speaker 2: over by its competitor, Micron Technology. And as I remember,
[2:37] Speaker 2: Samsung at one point was involved in a takeover conversation,
[2:40] Speaker 2: but even Samsung refused to buy sk Heinex so leonteg.
[2:45] Speaker 2: I'm curious what's behind this incredible turnaround, what can speak
[2:49] Speaker 2: to the performance of this company where I think revenue
[2:53] Speaker 2: now is greater than two hundred billion dollars a year.
[2:58] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, indeed, I mean it really shows a sign
[3:01] Speaker 3: of the times, right. I think both Samsung and Eskeahannick's
[3:05] Speaker 3: revenue combined would offer some staggering number. I don't quite recall,
[3:12] Speaker 3: but yeah, basically, they're going to account for a lot
[3:14] Speaker 3: of tax revenue for the Korean government, and that is now,
[3:20] Speaker 3: you know, making the government think about how they're going
[3:23] Speaker 3: to use the revenue in a meaningful way. And I
[3:26] Speaker 3: saw an article this morning about how the government wants
[3:29] Speaker 3: to use it to boost or use it on the
[3:33] Speaker 3: young people in Korea. We've we've been writing a lot
[3:36] Speaker 3: about how the young people are facing a lot of
[3:40] Speaker 3: you know, joblessness. Right there is a lot of eagerness
[3:43] Speaker 3: to climb the ladder of owning a house, but because
[3:47] Speaker 3: very few people have jobs when they're young and or
[3:50] Speaker 3: getting paid much, there's just a very little hope that
[3:53] Speaker 3: they could accumulate the wealth their parents' generation does so. Yeah,
[3:59] Speaker 3: I think. I think it's now becoming a bit of
[4:01] Speaker 3: a social debate as well.
[4:03] Speaker 2: It's interesting that you speak about the role of the government,
[4:06] Speaker 2: because today we learned that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik of
[4:09] Speaker 2: the US is calling on both sk Heinix and Samsung
[4:13] Speaker 2: to expand their production of these memoryships in the United States.
[4:17] Speaker 2: I would imagine that the government in Seoul is trying
[4:20] Speaker 2: to protect this industry. Do you think this is something
[4:24] Speaker 2: that can be negotiated where a company like sk Heinix
[4:27] Speaker 2: or Samsung can agree to further expand production in the
[4:31] Speaker 2: United States.
[4:33] Speaker 3: Yeah, I can imagine how some negotiations may be happening
[4:37] Speaker 3: behind closed doors. I know Somesng already has quite a
[4:42] Speaker 3: big plant, if not a few, in the US, and
[4:46] Speaker 3: there's some big numbers being thrown around as Khnix, though
[4:50] Speaker 3: I believe the presence that they have in terms of
[4:53] Speaker 3: infrastructure in the US is a bit less, and with
[4:58] Speaker 3: the listing of the ads with you know, for the
[5:01] Speaker 3: market presence for Eskehannis in the US, I would think
[5:05] Speaker 3: the kind of at least the noise around how the
[5:09] Speaker 3: company should invest more in the US would rise and potentially, yeah,
[5:15] Speaker 3: I see a likelihood of eskahanis spending a bit more
[5:19] Speaker 3: in the US.
[5:20] Speaker 2: So the context for this, obviously is the global shortage
[5:24] Speaker 2: that we have in memory, and which takes us to
[5:28] Speaker 2: the story on chunction memory technologies in China. This is
[5:33] Speaker 2: a company that is now emerging as one of the
[5:35] Speaker 2: world's most important semiconductor manufacturers. This is a very unique
[5:40] Speaker 2: moment in time where you have such scarcity of a
[5:44] Speaker 2: commodity that's in such high demand and China seems to
[5:47] Speaker 2: be taking advantage of it.
[5:50] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. So it
[5:53] Speaker 3: is definitely a very big deal for China, you know,
[5:58] Speaker 3: a big deal, but also for the IPU market, it
[6:00] Speaker 3: is also a big deal. Challenging is expected to raise
[6:03] Speaker 3: more than four billion dollars of yeah of funds in
[6:09] Speaker 3: China via a local IPO and it's gonna be the
[6:13] Speaker 3: biggest since twenty twenty two. And after Challenging, I believe
[6:18] Speaker 3: it's Pierre yan Zu is also going to list. So
[6:22] Speaker 3: you know, it means first of all, these companies in
[6:26] Speaker 3: China are going to get more funding or more capital
[6:30] Speaker 3: to compete and to spend and potentially get more market
[6:34] Speaker 3: share from the likes of Micron, Samsan and Skhannis, so
[6:40] Speaker 3: potentially adding a bit of pressure there. And second is
[6:44] Speaker 3: that you know, with the Chinese giants rising, potentially with
[6:49] Speaker 3: the fundraising overall, that also could you know, mean China
[6:55] Speaker 3: or becoming or become even more powerful in this AI infrastructure, infrastructure,
[7:01] Speaker 3: a supply chain, and potentially it could create more sort
[7:06] Speaker 3: of geopolitical tensions between China and the US as the
[7:10] Speaker 3: AI race continues.
[7:11] Speaker 2: Leon Ting, It's always a pleasure. Thank you so very much.
[7:14] Speaker 2: Bloomberg's Leon Ting too. She is Managing editor for Asian Markets,
[7:19] Speaker 2: joining from our studios in Singapore here on the Daybreak
[7:21] Speaker 2: Asia podcast. Welcome back to the Daybreak Asia Podcast. I'm
[7:31] Speaker 2: Dok Kristner and as I mentioned a moment ago, sk
[7:34] Speaker 2: Heinis is said to make its US debut on Friday.
[7:38] Speaker 2: That's where we begin this conversation with Brendan Burke. Brendon
[7:42] Speaker 2: is Research director of semiconductors at the Futureum Group, and
[7:46] Speaker 2: he spoke with Bloomberg TV host sherry On Brandon.
[7:49] Speaker 1: Really good to have you with us. I mean, sk
[7:51] Speaker 1: Heinis has been doing so well, right They have a
[7:53] Speaker 1: strong balance sheet, they don't necessarily need the capital. Why
[7:56] Speaker 1: do this now?
[7:58] Speaker 4: Well, Hi, Erry morning, great to be with you. Right
[8:02] Speaker 4: now is an ideal time to capitalize on the strategic
[8:06] Speaker 4: role of memory in the AI buildout. Sk Heinex has
[8:10] Speaker 4: shown that it's a critical thought partner in development of
[8:13] Speaker 4: novel AI systems along with innovators like Nvidia, and it's
[8:18] Speaker 4: developing the next gen systems that can continue high growth
[8:22] Speaker 4: for the memory trade as we head into the next
[8:25] Speaker 4: wave of agentic systems.
[8:27] Speaker 1: Esk Heinix. Has it historically traded with that Korea discount
[8:32] Speaker 1: that we see in these South Korean listings? And what
[8:35] Speaker 1: could this US listing do for the company in terms
[8:38] Speaker 1: of capital base, in terms of long term strategies for
[8:41] Speaker 1: the company, Well.
[8:44] Speaker 4: I think there are multiple elements to its valuation, not
[8:47] Speaker 4: just geography. Technology companies benefit from forward looking investments in
[8:53] Speaker 4: long term innovations and the past cycles of two year
[9:00] Speaker 4: rises and dips in memory pricing have led to conservatism
[9:05] Speaker 4: and how memory companies are managed. And the opportunity now
[9:10] Speaker 4: is to invest in fabrication capacity that can extend market
[9:16] Speaker 4: leadership in emerging categories like high bandwidth memory. While creating
[9:21] Speaker 4: new categories that can support the strategic role of memory
[9:26] Speaker 4: in agentic reasoning. And Skhinex has its fabrication capacity based
[9:34] Speaker 4: in Korea while most of its demand is from the
[9:38] Speaker 4: United States. There is an opportunity to expand fabrication capacity
[9:43] Speaker 4: closer to its customers and also catch up to its
[9:49] Speaker 4: peers in terms of CAPEX intensity, finding a way to
[9:54] Speaker 4: expand output while maintaining pricing as well as technological leadership.
[10:01] Speaker 1: Where could we see that expansion in terms of parts
[10:04] Speaker 1: of the business. Will it be more HBM capacity, advanced packaging,
[10:08] Speaker 1: Will it be other parts of the business that he
[10:10] Speaker 1: hasn't explored yet.
[10:13] Speaker 4: Those are two promising areas Sherry. Advanced packaging is the
[10:18] Speaker 4: critical enabler of memory scaling, especially three D stacking of
[10:23] Speaker 4: high bandwidth memory as we progress into the HBM four
[10:27] Speaker 4: era and then onto HBM five and s k Heinex
[10:31] Speaker 4: has shown a commitment to expanding advanced packaging capacity, particularly
[10:36] Speaker 4: in the US so far. The opportunity is to continue
[10:41] Speaker 4: expanding into new product categories, especially in areas like high
[10:48] Speaker 4: bandwidth flash in partnership with sand disk, and also it's
[10:53] Speaker 4: exploring new technological opportunities, whether it's the creation of specific
[10:59] Speaker 4: CAV cache appliances for a gentic context windows, or looking
[11:06] Speaker 4: into things like near memory computing and doing AI acceleration
[11:12] Speaker 4: within the memory cell itself. And so these are promising
[11:18] Speaker 4: areas where pricing power can be extended as we move
[11:22] Speaker 4: beyond the past of commodity dram.
[11:29] Speaker 1: Brendan, we're seeing this trend towards custom silicon, whether it's US,
[11:33] Speaker 1: Hyperscalers or even Chinese companies these days. What are the
[11:36] Speaker 1: implications for U, s K, hih nix.
[11:41] Speaker 4: This is a very promising opportunity to co develop accelerator
[11:47] Speaker 4: architectures with Hyperscalers. The critical driver performance gains for these
[11:56] Speaker 4: accelerator architectures we're seeing is the amount of high bandwidth
[12:01] Speaker 4: memory available to the logic chip as well as the
[12:05] Speaker 4: logic dye on which that memory is stacked. And when
[12:11] Speaker 4: new customers come into the market, they each have demand
[12:15] Speaker 4: for memory. Up until this point, the new custom silicon
[12:21] Speaker 4: players haven't achieved as much memory allocation as they've wanted. Yet.
[12:26] Speaker 4: All indications are that they're moving forward with roadmaps and
[12:31] Speaker 4: that custom silicon XPUS could actually in our forecast at
[12:35] Speaker 4: future them outgrow GPUs through the end of the decade,
[12:40] Speaker 4: and that's based on a sustained commitment by custom silicon
[12:44] Speaker 4: designers to their product lines. And so that's going to
[12:48] Speaker 4: introduce new sources of demand for sk Heinix and encourage
[12:51] Speaker 4: collaboration on new three D packaging techniques. And we're already
[12:59] Speaker 4: seeing new players come into the market recently. Whether it's
[13:03] Speaker 4: WELLcom with their high bandwidth memory, and that presents opportunities
[13:10] Speaker 4: to really center memory as an increasing proportion of accelerator spending.
[13:16] Speaker 1: Okay, how about competition from Chinese memory makers. We keep
[13:21] Speaker 1: hearing about the life of CXMT for example. How real
[13:25] Speaker 1: is that competition, especially in terms of technological progress.
[13:31] Speaker 4: It's very serious and consideration for Skhiinix. CXMT is explicitly
[13:38] Speaker 4: named in the F one filing as a competitive threat.
[13:43] Speaker 4: Yet memory gains are being made with the leading lithography techniques.
[13:50] Speaker 4: We're seeing market leadership with using EUV machines from ASML
[13:56] Speaker 4: for continued performance gains even in more commodity segments like
[14:03] Speaker 4: DDR five. We've seen Micron be first to market with
[14:08] Speaker 4: one gamma DDR five that can achieve performance gains for
[14:14] Speaker 4: a similar memory sell to prior generations and so that's
[14:19] Speaker 4: an area where China will not be able to keep
[14:22] Speaker 4: up because it lacks access to those EUV machines. Additionally,
[14:26] Speaker 4: high bandwidth memory is an increasing proportion of the memory market.
[14:31] Speaker 4: It's going to be an increasing proportion of GPU rex
[14:38] Speaker 4: going forward, and that's an area where China cannot compete
[14:42] Speaker 4: as well. So, as we see in other areas of
[14:46] Speaker 4: the tech market, China is going to be able to
[14:49] Speaker 4: catch up at the low end, but is it going
[14:51] Speaker 4: to be able to capture the AI prize That remains
[14:54] Speaker 4: to be seen. And there is a mote for those
[14:58] Speaker 4: market leaders that have accessed of the leading fabrication techniques
[15:02] Speaker 4: as well as close partnerships with leading edge fabs and
[15:08] Speaker 4: then customers as well.
[15:09] Speaker 2: That was Brendan Burke, research director for Semiconductors at Futurum Group,
[15:14] Speaker 2: speaking with Bloomberg TV host Sherry On bringing you their
[15:17] Speaker 2: conversation here on the Daybreak Asia Podcast. Thanks for listening
[15:23] Speaker 2: to today's episode of the Bloomberg Daybreak Asia Edition podcast.
[15:28] Speaker 2: Each weekday, we look at the story shaping markets, finance,
[15:31] Speaker 2: and geopolitics in the Asia Pacific. You can find us
[15:34] Speaker 2: on Apple, Spotify, The Bloomberg podcast, YouTube channel, or anywhere
[15:38] Speaker 2: else you listen. Join us again tomorrow for insight on
[15:42] Speaker 2: the market moves from Hong Kong to Singapore and Australia.
[15:46] Speaker 2: I'm Doug Chrisner, and this is Bloomberg

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.