Three US and UK investors signal up to $7b interest in SK hynix ADR offering

Three investment firms, including a US hedge fund founded by a former OpenAI researcher, have signaled they could take up to $7 billion worth of SK hynix's American depositary receipt offering, the Financial Times reported Monday.

The three firms are US hedge fund Situational Awareness, UK asset manager Baillie Gifford and US venture capital firm Coatue, according to the FT. The combined interest would represent roughly a quarter of the total offering, valued at 43.14 trillion won ($28.2 billion).

Situational Awareness, founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, has drawn wide attention among retail investors for its pioneering bets on AI-related stocks. Baillie Gifford is known for its growth-oriented strategy of identifying innovative companies and holding them from early stages over the long term, while Coatue is a venture capital firm recognized for its aggressive investments in technology companies.

SK hynix plans to issue 17.79 million new shares — equivalent to about 2.5 percent of its outstanding shares — in the form of American depositary shares, with trading on the Nasdaq set to begin Friday.

Albert Yong, managing partner at Petra Capital Management, acknowledged recent market volatility but said demand for SK hynix shares would be "relatively solid," according to Reuters.

Sundeep Gantori, chief investment officer for equities at Standard Chartered, struck a more cautious note, saying that while improved accessibility from the US listing was a positive, "the timing of the memory cycle matters just as much."

Daniel Coatsworth, markets editor at AJ Bell, questioned whether the listing had come "a little late," telling Bloomberg that memory chip stocks had lost upward momentum in recent weeks — though he added that investors could still view SK hynix "as a solid long-term growth story rather than a passing trend."