SK Hynix raised record $26.5 billion on debut ADR placement in US
South Korean memory chip manufacturer SK Hynix raised 26.5 billion dollars in its debut placement of American Depositary Receipts. This is the largest initial public offering of a foreign company in US market history. The placement opened a new channel for the company to attract capital from investors betting on artificial intelligence infrastructure.
AI-processed from Bloomberg Tech; edited by Hamidun News
South Korean memory chip maker SK Hynix raised $26.5 billion in July 2026 during its debut offering of American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) on a US exchange. According to Bloomberg, this is the largest initial public offering of a foreign company in US history on the American market.
How the offering is structured
American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) are securities traded on US exchanges, each of which represents a certain number of shares of a foreign company held in custody by a depositary bank. This mechanism allows foreign issuers to attract capital from American investors without a direct listing of shares on a US exchange. For SK Hynix, which already trades in Seoul, the ADR offering became an additional funding channel.
- Offering volume — $26.5 billion
- Status — largest initial public offering of a foreign company in US history
- Instrument — American Depositary Receipts (ADRs)
- Author — Bloomberg correspondent Danny Thomas, Seoul
Why investors are hunting for SK Hynix shares
SK Hynix is one of the world's largest memory chip manufacturers alongside Samsung and Micron, and a key supplier of high-speed HBM (High Bandwidth Memory), which is used in Nvidia accelerators for training and inference of large language models. Data center demand for HBM has surged along with the generative AI boom, and this is directly reflected in the company's financial performance and market capitalization — hence the heightened interest from American investors in its securities.
The offering gives SK Hynix a powerful new channel for attracting capital: in addition to its main listing in Seoul, the company gained direct access to a pool of American investors seeking ways to profit from the artificial intelligence infrastructure boom.
What this means
SK Hynix's record ADR offering shows that investor appetite for AI infrastructure extends far beyond American tickers like Nvidia — capital is flowing to Asian suppliers of critical components, such as HBM memory.
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