SK Hynix has filed to raise up to 45.45 trillion won, roughly $29bn, through a listing of American depositary receipts on Nasdaq, the South Korean memory maker disclosed in a regulatory filing on Wednesday.
The company has tentatively set July 10 for the debut and intends to issue 17.79 million new shares to back the receipts, with 10 ADRs representing one common share.
At the top of the indicated range, the offering would be the largest ADR sale on record, ahead of the $21.8bn Alibaba raised in its 2014 New York debut. There is a small wrinkle in the headline number.
The destination of the money is unusually specific for a deal this size. SK Hynix said the entire raise will fund capacity, naming a chip fabrication plant in Yongin, an advanced-packaging fab in Cheongju, and equipment purchases that include extreme ultraviolet scanners, the lithography machines that print the smallest features on a wafer. None of it is going to shareholders or debt.
For a company whose order book is already full, that reads less like a war chest and more like a bill.
