SK Hynix Targets $29B Nasdaq Offering – DRAM Jumps Over 4% Ahead Of Micron's Report

• SK Hynix will issue 17.79 million new shares to back a Nasdaq listing of ADRs on July 10.
• DRAM, which holds SK Hynix stock among its top three holdings, rose 4.2% in Wednesday’s premarket session.
• Investors were positioning ahead of Micron’s Q3 report, due after U.S. market hours today.

South Korean memory chip giant SK Hynix is looking to raise 45.45 trillion won ($29.4 billion) through a share offering to U.S. investors next month, marking a major expansion push as the memory industry enjoys one of its strongest upcycles on record.

SK Hynix will issue 17.79 million new shares to back ​a listing of ADRs on the Nasdaq market on July 10. The company said cash proceeds will be used to build a chip factory in ​the city of Yongin, an advanced packaging fab in Cheongju and ​purchase chipmaking equipment such as an Extreme Ultraviolet Scanner.

SK Hynix’s US Listing Next Week

The U.S. listing would give SK Hynix direct access to American capital markets and offer U.S. investors a broader range of opportunities to gain exposure to the booming memory chip sector.

With the proposed fundraising, SK Hynix’s listing would be among the top five share sales of all time, comparable with Saudi Aramco’s then-record 2019 initial public offering. SK Hynix recently overtook Samsung as South Korea’s most valuable company. As of Wednesday, the company was valued at $1.35 trillion.

SK Hynix’s operating profit for the first quarter jumped to 37.61 trillion won ($25.4 billion), a record high. Sales nearly tripled to 52.58 trillion won.

SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron are the top three holdings on Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM), a newly launched fund for the sector that has been in high demand. DRAM was up 4.2% in the premarket session on Wednesday; it has risen 138% since its launch on April 2.

MU’s Q3 Report On The Deck

Meanwhile, investors were setting up for Micron’s third-quarter report, due after U.S. market hours.

Analysts and investors have set a high bar for the results and will focus on updates on high-bandwidth memory (HBM) volumes, visibility into customer demand, and pricing trends in both the DRAM and NAND markets.

On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment for DRAM shifted to ‘extremely bullish’ from ‘bullish,’ while the sentiment for MU turned ‘bullish’ from ‘neutral.’ 

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