Shares of SK Square, the holding company that controls memory-chip giant SK Hynix, jumped on the Seoul exchange after its crown-jewel subsidiary pulled off the largest-ever U.S. IPO by a foreign company — a $26.5 billion listing that signals Wall Street's extraordinary hunger for anything tied to the AI hardware supply chain. SK Hynix's $26.5 Billion Nasdaq Debut Is a Windfall for Parent SK Square, but Does the Holding-Company Discount Deserve to Vanish?
Shares shifted sharply as SK Hynix — the AI memory-chip powerhouse controlled by Seoul-listed holding company SK Square — closed its first U.S. trading day up roughly 13% at $168, after raising $26.5 billion in the largest-ever American listing by a foreign company. For SK Square shareholders, who own the stock primarily as a leveraged bet on SK Hynix, the implications are enormous and immediate.
The IPO Instantly Repriced SK Square's Biggest Asset
SK Square held a 20.5% stake in SK Hynix as of March 31.
As of July 1, SK Square's own website pegged its total net asset value — essentially, what all its investments are worth — at ₩379.2 trillion, of which SK Hynix alone accounts for ₩374 trillion, or roughly 99% of the total. The first-day pop in U.S.-listed shares pushes that figure even higher, yet SK Square itself recently traded around ₩1,525,000 per share — well below its stated net asset value of ₩2,873,261 per share. That persistent gap, roughly 47%, is what investors call a holding-company discount: the market values the parent far less than the sum of its parts. A successful Nasdaq listing could narrow it by bringing global analyst coverage and liquidity to SK Hynix, making the underlying stake easier to value — and harder to ignore.
$26.5 Billion in Fresh Capital Funds a Massive Factory Buildout
SK Hynix plans to spend $390 billion on a cluster of chip plants in Yongin, South Korea , and is building a $4 billion advanced-packaging plant in Indiana.
Revenue jumped 198% year-over-year in Q1 2026 , but sustaining that pace requires enormous capital spending. The IPO proceeds buy time and capacity without diluting the Korean-listed shares that drive SK Square's value.
The Boom-Bust Memory Cycle Is the Elephant in the Room
SK Hynix commands 56.4% of the global market for high-bandwidth memory chips — the specialized components stacked inside AI processors. Analysts warn that as new supply comes online in 2027 and 2028, pricing power could erode sharply.
Just a few years ago, memory makers had negative gross margins.
SK Square Rides a Single Horse
SK Square's overwhelming dependence on SK Hynix creates dangerous concentration risk; a reversal in SK Hynix's fortunes would devastate the parent's net asset value.
SK Square shares have risen ~825% in the past year , but that trajectory is entirely tethered to one cyclical chipmaker riding an AI spending wave that even bulls concede cannot last forever.