A company many people might never have heard of a year ago has landed the largest ever US listing by a foreign corporation, granting American investors direct access to one of the hottest trades of the year.
On Friday, semiconductor manufacturing giant SK Hynix begins trading at $149 per share, raising about $26.5 billion. The last foreign company to notch a record US debut was Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, which raised $25 billion in its 2014 IPO.
The historic milestone set by a once-obscure name underscores the enthusiasm that has repeatedly driven tech stocks to record highs this year. A massive buildout of data centers to enable artificial intelligence has boosted demand for the memory chips that SK Hynix makes.
The rush to buy shares of SK Hynix and Samsung, the world’s largest memory chipmaker, has turned South Korea’s stock market into the world’s seventh-largest after it overtook Canada’s in May. Both companies, which combined account for about 50% of Seoul’s Kospi index, hit $1 trillion valuations in the past few months.
However, an eagerness to profit from the AI boom, particularly among retail investors, has also exacerbated extreme market swings. Sharp sell-offs in South Korean stocks have triggered temporary trading halts several times this year.
