SK priced 177.9 million American depositary receipts at $149 each earlier this month, raising $26.51 billion in the largest share sale by a non-U.S. company on record, with the SEC filing earmarking proceeds for Korean manufacturing facilities and equipment, including EUV scanners.
Wednesday's capex number is roughly the same size and funds an accelerated mass production schedule at the M15X fab in Cheongju, the Yongin Phase 1 cleanroom that opens in early 2027, and the previously announced P&T7 advanced packaging plant and M17 NAND base, which SK hynix said will be built in phases according to customer demand. Cash and short-term investments hit 88 trillion won at the quarter's end, up 33.6 trillion won in three months, against interest-bearing debt of 18.6 trillion won and a debt-to-equity ratio of 7%.
CEO Kwak Noh-jung called 2027 the worst year of the shortage on the day of the Nasdaq listing and put the end of the crunch beyond 2030. Full-year DRAM demand is growing at a mid-20% rate by the company's own estimate, against bit shipments guided up around 10% next quarter. None of the capacity now being funded will produce wafers before 2027.
Operating profit landed below the 64.1 trillion won that brokerages surveyed by Yonhap Infomax had modeled. Executives attributed the softer blended DRAM ASP to product mix and to high-value shipments pushed into the second half, and said the gap should close as HBM4 and 1c-node conventional DRAM ramp up. HBM4 entered mass production during the quarter, and HBM4E samples have shipped, with volume production targeted for 2027.
SK hynix files to raise up to $29 billion in historic Nasdaq listing
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/sk-hynix-operating-profit-rises-557-percent#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com/subscription
- China begins mass production of homegrown immersion chipmaking machines in major breakthrough, report claims — first DUV lithography units will be delivered thi
- 16-hour Xbox outage even stopped physical games from working — company blames licensing issue for incident that prohibited gaming across three generations of co
- China begins mass production of homegrown immersion chipmaking machines in major breakthrough, report claims — first DUV lithography units will be delivered thi
- At AI Summit, South Korea Outlines Its AI Future With NVIDIA and Partners
- OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic absent from Nvidia-led Open Secure AI Alliance — 30+ companies join security alliance after OpenAI agent breach
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.