SK Hynix shares dip in Seoul after record Nasdaq debut

Shares of SK Hynix fell as much as 4.4% in early trading in Seoul on Monday after the South Korean chipmaker's American depositary receipts surged 12.8% in their first day on the Nasdaq last Friday, according to Reuters.reuters

The pullback came after SK Hynix raised $26.5 billion through its ADR offering — the largest-ever U.S. share sale by a foreign company, surpassing Alibaba's ↘ 4.74% $25 billion listing in 2014. The ADRs, priced at $149 each, opened at $170 and closed at $168.01 on Friday, a gain of roughly 13%.cnbc+3

A Landmark Listing Tests AI Appetite

The offering, which was more than seven times oversubscribed, underscored investor appetite for a company at the center of the artificial intelligence supply chain. SK Hynix is the world's leading manufacturer of high-bandwidth memory chips used in AI data centers, and the listing gave global investors direct access to a stock that had previously traded only on the Kospi in Seoul.wtvbam

CNBC reported that SK Hynix Chairman Chey Tae-won told investors the company sees the U.S. listing as a way to "bring our story directly to the world's deepest capital market". The company sold 177.9 million ADRs, with ten ADRs representing one ordinary share.reuters+2

Profit-Taking and Valuation Questions

Monday's decline in Seoul reflected profit-taking after the stock's strong performance around the listing. SK Hynix shares had risen 2.2% in Seoul on Friday ahead of the U.S. debut, and the benchmark Kospi also traded lower on Monday.finance.yahoo+1

The retreat follows a volatile stretch for Korean semiconductor stocks. Earlier in July, SK Hynix had dropped as much as 14.6% in a single session amid a broader tech selloff sparked by concerns over memory chip pricing and competition from Chinese AI firms.cnbc

What Comes Next

The ADRs began trading Friday under the temporary ticker SKHYV and are set to switch to the permanent ticker SKHY beginning Tuesday. Fortune reported that SK Hynix's listing was the second-largest share sale in U.S. history, trailing only SpaceX's offering last month. The company had indicated it would use proceeds in part to fund capital expenditure for next-generation memory production as demand from AI infrastructure buildouts continues to accelerate.fortune+3