SK Hynix’s Chey to Ring Nasdaq Opening Bell for ADR Debut

Chey makes his move in New York, betting SK’s future on AI

Deal nears second-biggest US listing ever by a foreign company

“Hynix needs to be 10 times bigger than it is now”

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won will appear in person at the Nasdaq opening-bell ceremony for SK Hynix’s American depositary receipts listing. He is set to use the event to meet global investors and key customers and discuss ways to expand cooperation in artificial intelligence memory. Industry officials view the Nasdaq debut as a turning point that could help recast SK Hynix from a commodity memory maker into a core global AI infrastructure company.

Chey will attend the SK Hynix ADR listing ceremony in New York on July 10 alongside senior executives including Chief Executive Officer Kwak Noh-jung, according to the investment industry on July 9.

The event marks SK Hynix’s Nasdaq debut. Chey and other executives are expected to explain the company’s competitiveness and its medium- to long-term growth strategy directly to global investors.

The ADR deal is valued at about 43 trillion won, with the company planning to issue up to 17.79 million new shares, or about 2.5% of total shares outstanding. Bloomberg reported on July 9, citing people familiar with the matter, that the bookbuilding drew orders worth more than seven times the shares on offer. The people said demand came from global long-term investment funds, technology-focused funds, sovereign wealth funds and Asia-focused international investors.

The offering price will be finalized on July 9. If it is set at the July 8 closing price of 2.076 million won a share, SK Hynix would raise $24.5 billion. That would rank as the second-largest US listing ever by a foreign company, behind Alibaba’s $25 billion deal.

The ADRs will begin temporary trading on Nasdaq on July 10 and convert to regular trading on July 13. The proceeds will be used to build the first fab at the Yongin semiconductor cluster and the P&T7 advanced packaging fab in Cheongju, and to buy equipment including extreme ultraviolet scanners.

Chey’s decision to attend the event himself underscores SK Hynix’s push to more aggressively present its AI memory strengths and growth potential to global investors. The ADR listing is aimed at securing fuller recognition in global capital markets for a company that has become a key player in AI infrastructure expansion.

In “Super Momentum,” a book published earlier this year about SK Hynix’s success in high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, Chey wrote that the market still viewed SK Hynix as a commodity manufacturer and had not given it a higher valuation. “Hynix needs to be 10 times bigger than it is now.” The remark reflected his intention to transform SK Hynix from a simple memory supplier into a provider of customized AI memory solutions and lift the company’s value.

The investment industry also says Chey could meet executives from major US tech companies including Nvidia and Tesla during the trip. In February, he met Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang in Silicon Valley and discussed medium- to long-term cooperation on HBM, SOCAMM memory modules for next-generation servers, NAND flash and the buildout of AI data centers. He met Huang again in South Korea last month when the Nvidia chief visited the country, reaffirming the partnership.

Kim Dong-won, head of research at KB Securities, said the ADR listing should improve access for global investors and could lead to a re-rating of both the US-traded ADRs and the Seoul-listed common shares.

Kim said the listing also carries important implications when compared with TSMC’s ADR listing in the US in October 1997. Supported by a broader global investor base, TSMC’s ADRs traded at a premium to the common shares, while conversion and arbitrage demand persisted as investors sought to capture price gaps between the two lines.

Kang Kyung-ju, Hankyung.com reporter qurasoha@hankyung.com