SEOUL — Demand for SK Hynix’s $28-billion US 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.
Shares in SK Hynix jumped 6 percent 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 finalized later in the day in US 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 centers 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 percent in 12 months.
The company has become the leading supplier of high-bandwidth memory chips to Nvidia, a culmination of 14 years of bets that brought it skepticism and scorn but ultimately put it at the center of the global AI gold rush.
Details about how many times the sale was oversubscribed were reported earlier on Thursday by Bloomberg.
