[Yonhap]
[Yonhap]

SK hynix is nearing a US American depositary receipt listing and is considering paying its underwriters a fee of about 0.5 percent of the proceeds raised, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Based on SK hynix's recent market capitalization, the offering could raise approximately $26.5 billion, Bloomberg reported Friday.

At a 0.5 percent fee rate, total underwriter compensation would come to roughly $130 million (about 199 billion won).

Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan — four of the world's largest investment banks — are serving as lead underwriters. SK hynix is currently in discussions with them over fees and performance-based compensation, sources said.

The 0.5 percent rate would be lower than the 0.67 percent SpaceX paid for its recent initial public offering, which set a record for the largest IPO ever.

Even so, Bloomberg projected that the sheer scale of the fundraising would make the underwriter fees among the most notable of any Asia-related deal this year.

Bloomberg said the ADR listing could rank among the largest share offerings in history, trailing only SpaceX (about $86 billion) and Saudi Aramco (about $29.4 billion).

SK hynix has long been listed on the Korean stock market and has been one of the most closely watched global technology shares this year, giving it strong name recognition among investors — a factor that should ease the workload for its underwriters, Bloomberg said.

SK hynix has said it plans to issue ADRs backed by ordinary shares representing up to 2.5 percent of its total outstanding shares, though the actual volume and offering size will be determined after a bookbuilding process with overseas institutional investors. ADRs are securities that allow foreign companies to trade their shares on US stock exchanges.


spa@heraldcorp.com