SK Chairman Has 'Much, Much Bigger' US Investment Plan

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This is Bloomberg Businessweek Daily, reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead, with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping today's complex economy, plus global business, finance, and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg Businessweek Daily podcast with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec. On Bloomberg Radio.

**Carol Massar** (0:32)
We have Safe to Save and counting down to this all week. We're talking about the US listing of a giant maker of memory chips. We're talking about SK Hynix. Happened today, it raised $26.5 billion in its American Depository Receipt Offering. The South Korean chip maker powering through really what's been a volatile market certainly in its home market to deliver the largest ever US first-time share sale by a foreign company. I feel like I should bring in Ed Ludlow first before we go to some sound from your incredible interview. Everybody in the newsroom was watching.
He is, of course, the host of Bloomberg Tech on Bloomberg Television. Ed, this was a big deal.

**Ed Ludlow** (1:10)
It was a big deal, not just because of the record that you outlined. The biggest first-time US share sale by a foreign company, the last, by the way, was Alibaba. That gives you a sense of the tech company they're in. But with what's happening right now in the landscape for semiconductors and memory chips, it's an eye-watering number, 26.5 billion, but SK Hynix is so capital committed in Korea domestically and around the world. We can get to the US part of that, that actually in the scheme of things, 26.5 billion is small.
It was as much about getting in front of Americans.
That was a part of the conversation. They want the American talent, the American investor. There's a sense that the US knows about AI as good as anyone does. So SK was super conscious of that. It's a multifaceted ADR listing.

**Isabelle Lee** (2:04)
You had an interview at the floor and it was very exciting, and it seemed like they have such big plans for the US. To your point, this is really about planting a flag. But then we also had a recent headline that says, they might expect a chip shortage to last into the next decade. How do you square that?

**Ed Ludlow** (2:20)
So, literally what happened was, I spent about 40 minutes with SK Group Chair, Chae Tae-wan.
SK Group is the parent company of SK Hynix, as well as others like SK Telecom. SK Hynix has its own CEO, and Bloomberg News spoke to him just after I came out of the NASDAQ. First time he's done an interview, I believe, particularly in English.

**Isabelle Lee** (2:43)
Yeah, amazing.

**Ed Ludlow** (2:44)
Maybe if I was a bit reflective on my interview with his boss, Chairman Chae, Chairman Chae just didn't get his calendar out and mark the date that he sees this memory shortage easing. But the SK CEO, he definitely did. So what he said was this goes way beyond 2030
Compare and contrast, I think Micron said 2028 is when you start to see supply catch up with demand.

**Carol Massar** (3:09)
That's a bit of a ways out to say the least. So in terms of that demand, it's going to be here for a while. Let's get a little bit though for everybody. Let's share some of your interview with the SK Hynix Chairman, Chey Tae-won.
Catching up with that earlier this morning. Check it out, everybody.

**Chey Tae-won** (3:26)
The SK already investing more than $35 billion in US side. My plan is that the much bigger number, so.
Yeah, well, much, much, much bigger than 35 I have some confidence in the world. The demand will be grow. And our supply capacity never going to catch up. It's going to be until that our people, our society, human society has set the world some settlement with AGI. Then, well, I guess that the world that's kind of normalized at the older the cycles. But anyhow, that until then, well, we we need that a lot of memories.

**Carol Massar** (4:05)
And that, of course, was SK Hi Next Chairman, Chey Tae-won catching up with Ed Ludlow in in-depth conversation. I highly recommend everybody kind of check it out on the Bloomberg or at bloomberg.com to get to listen to all of it.
You know, Ed, I think I've asked you this before. I can't tell whether something like this is a sign of a top or it's also a sign of artificial intelligence, what's happening here is a global thing. And the significance of this listing here, like I'm trying to put it together.

**Ed Ludlow** (4:31)