Investing.com — SK Hynix is considering paying banks underwriting its planned U.S. listing a fee of about 0.5% of the offering proceeds, Bloomberg reported on Saturday, as the South Korean memory chipmaker prepares what could become one of the largest share sales ever.
The company has indicated it could sell up to 2.5% of its outstanding shares, although the final size of the offering has yet to be determined. People familiar with the matter said the company may also award discretionary incentive payments on top of the base underwriting fee.
Based on SK Hynix’s current market value of roughly $1.1 trillion, the offering could raise about $26.5 billion. At a 0.5% fee, banks working on the transaction would collectively earn more than $130 million.
Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC), Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C), Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS), and JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM) are leading the share sale. An SK Hynix spokesperson declined to comment on the reported fee structure.
Although the proposed payout is below the typical underwriting fees charged for large U.S. offerings, it is still expected to rank among the biggest fee-generating equity deals involving an Asian company this year.
The planned listing comes after a sharp rally in SK Hynix shares over the past year, driven by surging demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure. The company has become the leading supplier of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips used in NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) AI processors, making it one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI investment boom.
The stock has recently experienced heightened volatility amid concerns over the sustainability of AI-related spending. Even so, SK Hynix remains substantially higher than it was a year ago, reflecting continued investor optimism over long-term demand for advanced memory chips.
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