By Hyunjoo Jin
SEOUL, July 9 (Reuters) – Demand for SK Hynix’s $28 billion U.S. share sale was more than seven times available shares, a person familiar with the matter said, underscoring huge investor appetite for one of the most important companies in the AI supply chain.
The offering from the South Korean chipmaker, which will finance new factories and equipment to meet surging AI chip demand, is set to be the world’s second-biggest share sale after SpaceX’s record-breaking $85.7 billion IPO last month.
SK Hynix declined to comment. The person declined to be identified as details of the share sale were confidential.
Shares in SK Hynix jumped 6% in morning trade.
Underwriters have told investors that pricing guidance is expected to come after the South Korean stock market closes on Thursday with allocations finalised later in the day in U.S. time, a separate source has previously said.
Though shares in semiconductor companies globally have lost momentum in recent weeks, firms like SK Hynix and rival Samsung Electronics are sitting on historic gains as insatiable demand for computer chips to power AI data centres has sent profits soaring.
SK Hynix shares have dropped by about a quarter in the last two weeks. Even so, the stock is up 680% in 12 months.
The company has become the leading supplier of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips to Nvidia, a culmination of 14 years of bets that brought it skepticism and scorn but ultimately put it at the centre of the global AI gold rush.
Details about how many times the sale was oversubscribed were reported earlier on Thursday by Bloomberg.
(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin; Additonal reporting by Tom Westbrook; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
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