Nasdaq President Nelson Griggs Talks SK Hynix Public Listing

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:08)
Welcome back, we want to go back to the Nasdaq now, where Bloomberg's Ed Ludlow is with the president of that exchange, Nelson Griggs. Ed, over to you.

**Ed Ludlow** (0:15)
Yeah, Nelson Griggs is Nasdaq president, and that went about as well as it possibly could have done, right?

**Nelson Griggs** (0:21)
Yes, it did, yeah.

**Ed Ludlow** (0:23)
Talk about the experience of it, you know, it's a record in terms of your first time US share sale for a foreign entity. We keep saying that, but the mechanics of it, are they difficult to pull off?

**Nelson Griggs** (0:35)
Well, I think a lot of the mechanics will be the underwriters, so let's give them all the credit in the world, JP Morgan running this transaction primarily as a stabilization agent. Not only stabilizing this trade, but they were the orchestrator, let's call it that. You know, our job is to provide the capacity, the technology, you saw behind you, the human intelligence and making sure that everyone knows what's happening with full transparency, so all the bookrunners can communicate with their customers, which is the buy side, the investors, who are making the bet on SK Hynix.

**Ed Ludlow** (1:04)
Celebration is continuing behind us.

**Nelson Griggs** (1:05)
It's going to continue for a while, I think, yeah.

**Ed Ludlow** (1:07)
It's interesting, this isn't very sophisticated, but it's a Friday, does that play into it at all? What are we seeing in the activity around that?

**Nelson Griggs** (1:15)
I think most deals will price and trade on a Wednesday or a Thursday, Friday's not typical, especially during the summer, but I think you get to a deal of this size that has captivated the market. It had tremendous institutional interest, so I think it could have, any day of the week would have been fine for SK Hynix.

**Ed Ludlow** (1:31)
Nelson, one of the things I started the conversation with Chairman Chay on was the idea that on an ongoing basis ADRs are an interesting mechanism for them in the capital markets. Essentially what Chairman Chay said was, well, we'll look at some stability and give it some time, but yes, how would that work, the idea that you come back to the market on whatever cadence they choose?

**Nelson Griggs** (1:54)
Sure, well, companies typically will come back to the market. They'll be evaluating where they can get the best valuation for those shares, whether it's in their local market or an ADR market, but the typical technology IPO will come back to the market several times to raise capital.
This is a very seasoned public company, so they'll go through all those mechanics, say where is the best place that they do need to raise capital? It could be the debt markets, it could be the equity markets, and hopefully it's ADRs in the US.

**Ed Ludlow** (2:18)
Do we need to make anything of where they price the ADR?
You know, this morning on the Bloomberg, it was about this idea, okay, this is a 3% premium over where the common shares in Seoul closed, the ADRs represent a tenth of one common share. You know, the back story is how much money do you, or do you not leave on the table?

**Nelson Griggs** (2:41)
That's always the question, right, for companies, and typically if an IPO, let's say it's not an ADR, let's say it's a benchmark off their current public comps. This had a combination, okay, so what is the equity trading in Korea? Also you have a large US comp in Micron, so how do you find that balance? And that's where again, I think JP Morgan did a very nice job here getting the price to a point where we've seen some nice upward price action, it's very stable at the moment, and I think he did just a great job here.

**Ed Ludlow** (3:08)
Chairman Chay made an interesting point about maybe the rationale or so for doing this, which was not just the capital, the proceeds raised, but introducing SK to the American people. Absolutely.
That was in the context of the talent perspective, pipeline of talented people that might work for the company. From the Nasdaq side and your involvement through the process, how much do you take that into account?

**Nelson Griggs** (3:32)
Quite a bit, and most companies will take that into account. You look at being on a public stage, the global capital markets public is about 150 trillion market cap. The US is 70% of that. I think being a public company in the US does show as you want to attract talent. They're making significant investments in the US. Having a US currency to do that is a big deal. And even a traditional IPO puts the brand component as one of the major reasons why they think about tapping the public markets.