SK hynix eyes US listing to tap chip valuation premium

SK hynix is reviewing a US listing via American Depositary Receipts to broaden its investor base and narrow a valuation gap, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won said at Nvidia’s GTC.

SK hynix is the world’s second-largest memory chip maker.

In December, it considered shareholder value measures, including a US listing using treasury shares.

The firm is expected to use about 2.4% of treasury stock, roughly 17.4 million shares, to back the ADR issuance.

As of late 2025, SK hynix traded at about 11 times earnings vs. roughly 29 times for Micron Technology despite reporting operating profit of 11.4 trillion won (US$7.65 billion) in Q3.

A US listing could help it capture a US growth premium and enter major semiconductor indices.

🔗 Source: Korea Herald

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

Domestic rules and massive capital needs shape SK hynix’s ADR calculus

SK hynix says it needs about 600 trillion won ($408.1 billion) over the next few years to build chip plants and support related work 1.
Raising money by issuing new shares in Korea gets tricky because it could push parent company SK Square’s stake below the legally required 20% level 1.
South Korean lawmakers are weighing changes that would force listed companies to cancel treasury shares within one year of buying them, with penalties for companies that do not comply 2. Listing treasury shares as American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), U.S.-traded certificates that represent shares in a non-U.S. company, could bring in funding without diluting existing shareholders 1. Some observers also see a chance that ADRs count as shares being “disposed of” and could sidestep forced cancellations, though the legal and political reading remains unsettled 1.

The AI memory boom is tightening supply for consumer devices

The funding push tracks AI-led demand for memory, including high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in AI data centers 1.
More output going to HBM can squeeze consumer supply because every wafer used for an HBM stack for an Nvidia GPU is a wafer not used for memory in smartphones and PCs, according to IDC (a market research firm) 3.
Prices for consumer gear have climbed, with Tom’s Hardware reporting DDR5 kit prices moving from under $100 to several hundred dollars by early December 2025, which means some setups more than tripled 4. IDC adds that memory makers are treating PCs and phones as lower priorities, which raises costs and limits upgrade plans into 2026 and beyond 3.