SK Hynix Shareholders Push Back on Solidigm Listing as Wall Street Sticks to Its Guns
Published on 10/20/2026 at 10:11 | Editorial boerse-global.de
SK Hynix shares fell 4.2% to 1,223,000.00 KRW on Tuesday, extending a bruising stretch that has wiped 16% off the stock over the past seven days. The decline came amid a broad selloff in South Korean semiconductor names, with foreign and institutional investors leading the exit. The benchmark Kospi dropped 2.8% in early trading, according to AP.
A Governance Fight Brewing
The Korea Corporate Governance Forum used Tuesday's weakness to demand that management scrap plans for a potential US listing of subsidiary Solidigm. The group argued that external capital is unnecessary given that the company's free cash flow and liquidity reserves are at record levels. SK Hynix responded that no decision has been made on the form or timing of any such transaction.
The Korean financial regulator is formally examining whether an overseas listing of Solidigm would conflict with domestic rules designed to protect shareholders against dual listings of parent and subsidiary. FSS chief Lee Chan-jin said yesterday that the authority sees a possible US IPO of the unit at odds with those provisions. The regulatory assessment and next steps remain open. Investors fear that a separate issuance of new shares could dilute the parent company's value, according to media reports.
Two Banks, Two Big Targets
Against that backdrop, Goldman Sachs and Citi have reaffirmed their bullish calls. Both expect global supply of DRAM, NAND and high-bandwidth memory chips to remain tight at least through 2028. Goldman Sachs argues the peak of the current memory cycle is nowhere in sight and sees supply of leading memory components even tighter next year than this one, setting a twelve-month price target of 3.5 million Won. Citi, for its part, reiterated its buy rating with a target of 3.0 million Won, pointing to unabated artificial intelligence demand. Beyond specialty chips, surging appetite for enterprise SSDs should underpin manufacturers' earnings power in the years ahead, the bank added.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SK Hynix?
Citi also calculates that the stock trades at an expected price-to-earnings ratio of 2.7 — a historically low level — even after the recent slide.
What's Weighing on the Tape
Sentiment has been dented by growing caution toward the semiconductor sector. Market participants are weighing uncertainty over the returns on heavy global investment in AI infrastructure, while elevated interest rates and rising competition from China add to the gloom. Chinese memory maker CXMT is drawing particular attention for its progress on advanced 4F² DRAM, according to media reports.
The stock now sits 59% below its 52-week high, a gap that reflects doubts about the durability of worldwide infrastructure spending as well as uncertainty on the domestic regulatory front.
A Safety Net for Suppliers
Even as the shares struggle, SK Hynix is shoring up its domestic production network. Yesterday the company joined forces with the South Korean government and four major banks on a credit guarantee program worth up to 2 trillion Won for semiconductor suppliers. SK Hynix and the participating financial institutions are contributing a total of 100 billion Won, while K-SURE is providing the guarantees.
The coming days should reveal whether the analysts' confidence carries the day. The banks are betting on structural scarcity through 2028; many investors, meanwhile, are waiting above all for clarity on the unresolved regulatory and capital questions.
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