Asian tech firms seeking to follow SK Hynix may find foreign investors more selective

By Kane Wu and Saqib Iqbal Ahmed

HONG KONG/NEW YORK, July 13 (Reuters) - South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix whitethorn person had a rousing $26.5 cardinal U.S. stock merchantability and marketplace debut past week, but that owed overmuch to its pivotal relation successful the AI ‌supply concatenation and timing.

Other Asian tech firms are expected to instrumentality enactment and besides look to pat overseas investors but they ‌are apt to find appetite for AI-related companies much selective, investors say.

Current levels of capitalist exuberance implicit AI are going to beryllium hard to support arsenic fears turn astir the sustainability ​of AI-driven banal rallies, portion spot stocks besides thin to beryllium volatile owed to the humanities boom-and-bust cyclical quality of the industry.

"SK Hynix is simply a peculiar lawsuit due to the fact that it is large, liquid, AI-critical, and hard for galore U.S. investors to ain directly," said Ophir Gottlieb, CEO of Capital Market Laboratories.

"I'd telephone this timing for SK astir arsenic cleanable arsenic possible, but becoming little cleanable daily."

Giuseppe Sette, co-founder of AI concern analytics level Reflexivity, agrees, saying helium doesn't expect a wide ‌opening of floodgates.

SK Hynix, the starring developer of high-bandwidth ⁠memory (HBM) successful Nvidia processors, "works due to the fact that it plugs a circumstantial spread successful U.S. portfolios — AI representation — astatine highest enthusiasm ... 'me-too' listings without a wide AI oregon scarcity space shouldn't presume the aforesaid reception", helium said.

KIOXIA AND DAYONE

Relentless concern successful artificial ⁠intelligence has spurred the Asian tech assemblage to rise a grounds $84 cardinal for the twelvemonth to July 10, much than triple the magnitude for the aforesaid play successful 2025, LSEG information shows.

Of that, ADRs and planetary depositary receipts (GDRs) accounted for $29 billion, an all-time precocious for that category.

The U.S., successful particular, offers a wider excavation of ​investors, ​more liquidity and stronger governance, which tends to effect successful higher valuations than astatine ​home.

Companies known to beryllium funny successful a akin determination to ‌SK Hynix see Japanese representation chipmaker Kioxia, which has said it's readying an ADR listing arsenic soon arsenic the April-June 4th of 2027. Its shares person surged astir sixfold this twelvemonth connected AI demand.

Singapore-based information centre relation DayOne, portion successful talks with a imaginable buyer, is besides readying a U.S.-Singapore dual-listing targeting a valuation of $20 billion, sources with cognition of the substance person said.

DayOne did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.

There are apt to beryllium a dependable watercourse of others, bankers say.

"The existent exertion fundraising rhythm inactive has sizeable runway. We judge the structural drivers down AI concern volition ‌continue to enactment steadfast superior markets enactment implicit the adjacent 2 to 3 years," ​said James Wang, caput of Asia ex-Japan ECM astatine Goldman Sachs.