SK Hynix raises record $26.5 billion in US ADR debut

South Korean memory chipmaker SK Hynix raised $26.5 billion in July 2026 through its debut offering of American depositary receipts (ADRs) on a US exchange. According to Bloomberg, it is the largest primary share sale by a foreign company in US market history.

How the offering works

American depositary receipts (ADRs) are securities traded on US exchanges. Each one represents a set number of shares in a foreign company, held by a depositary bank. The mechanism lets foreign issuers tap US investors without listing their shares directly on a US exchange. SK Hynix already trades in Seoul, so the ADR offering gives it an additional source of funding.

• Offering size: $26.5 billion
• Status: the largest primary share sale by a foreign company in US history
• Instrument: American depositary receipts (ADRs)
• Reported by: Bloomberg correspondent Denny Thomas, Seoul

Why investors are chasing SK Hynix shares

SK Hynix ranks among the world's largest memory chipmakers alongside Samsung and Micron. It is also a key supplier of HBM (High Bandwidth Memory), which Nvidia's accelerators use to train and run inference on large language models. Data center demand for HBM has surged with the generative AI boom, and that shows up directly in the company's financial results and market value. That explains the heightened interest from US investors.

The offering hands SK Hynix a powerful new source of capital. On top of its primary listing in Seoul, the company now has direct access to a pool of US investors looking for ways to profit from the AI infrastructure boom.

What it means

SK Hynix's record ADR offering shows that investor appetite for AI infrastructure reaches well beyond US tickers like Nvidia. Capital is also flowing to Asian suppliers of critical components such as HBM memory.