Bloomberg reported on July 4, citing multiple sources, that SK Hynix—which is set to list its American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) this month, is considering paying a 0.5% commission to the underwriters.
According to the sources, SK Hynix has not yet finalized the total size of the offering but is reportedly planning to offer 2.5% of its total outstanding shares.
Based on the company’s recent market capitalization of approximately $110 billion, this offering could raise 26.5 billion USD; applying a 0.5% fee would result in fees exceeding 130 million USD.
The details of the agreement are subject to change, and there is a possibility that additional performance-based incentives may be paid in addition to the base fee. Nevertheless, the fee rate is expected to be lower than the 0.67% paid by SpaceX.
Although the fee rate is lower than the U.S. standard where fees for large initial public offerings (IPOs) typically exceed 1%, Bloomberg reported that it is expected to be one of the transactions generating the largest fees among Asian corporate deals this year.
Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., and JPMorgan Chase are serving as lead underwriters for SK Hynix’s ADR listing.
Bloomberg assessed that SK Hynix’s ADR listing could become the second-largest IPO in history, surpassing Saudi Aramco’s 29.4 billion USD offering in 2019 and following Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which raised approximately 86 billion USD in its listing last month.
Furthermore, since SK Hynix is already listed on the domestic market and is one of the most closely watched global tech stocks this year, investor awareness is high, and the workload for investment banks is expected to be relatively light.