SK Hynix pulled off the largest foreign ADR listing in Nasdaq history, raising $26.5B in a single offering. Within a week, the premium on those US-traded shares ballooned to roughly 51% over their Seoul-listed counterparts.
The South Korean memory chipmaker priced its American Depositary Receipts at $149 each on July 9, representing a modest 2.7% to 3.1% premium over its Korean shares at launch. By July 15, US investors had bid the ADRs up to levels that made the original pricing look quaint.
How a modest premium became a 51% gap
ADRs opened on their first trading day somewhere in the $170 to $177 range, already well above the offering price. The offering itself was more than seven times oversubscribed, surpassing every previous foreign ADR record.
SK Hynix is the dominant supplier of high-bandwidth memory, the specialized chips that make Nvidia’s AI accelerators actually work. The company has been expanding aggressively, with new fabrication facilities planned in Yongin and Cheongju to meet demand from hyperscalers and AI infrastructure builders. That growth story, combined with the convenience of a US-listed ticker (SKHY), created significant investor enthusiasm.
