SK Hynix Just Raised $26.5 Billion in the Biggest U.S. IPO Ever by a Foreign Company. Here's What It Signals for the AI Memory Boom.
Yahoo Finance ·
The biggest U.S. initial public offering (IPO) ever by a foreign company belongs to a memory-chip maker. South Korea's SK Hynix (FRA: HY9H) priced 177.9 million American depositary shares at $149 apiece late Thursday, raising about $26.5 billion. That tops the $25 billion Alibaba raised in its 2014 debut, and it trails only SpaceX 's June listing among U.S. IPOs of any kind. The shares began trading on the Nasdaq on a when-issued basis Friday and closed at $168.01, up 12.8% from the offer price, with regular trading under the SKHY ticker set to start Monday. A listing this size would be notable in any market. But what makes this one worth studying is what it says about demand for AI (artificial intelligence) memory. The world's biggest investors wanted far more of this company than they could get. SK Hynix makes memory chips, including the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) that feeds data to the processors training and running AI models. And it is the leader in that market, holding 58% of HBM revenue in the first quarter of 2026, according to Counterpoint Research. Its Seoul-listed shares have more than tripled this year as of this writing, and the company crossed a $1 trillion market value in May.
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