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Why does SK Hynix deserve more attention?

SK Hynix, which is based in South Korea, is the world's second-largest producer of DRAM and NAND memory chips after Samsung. It was founded in 1983 (as Hynudai Electronics), went public in South Korea in 1996, but wasn't listed in the U.S. until its IPO on July 10, 2026.

In the U.S., SK Hynix went public at $149 per ADS. Today, its stock trades at about $170.

SK Hynix's South Korean shares had already more than tripled year-to-date before its U.S. debut. The retail and institutional accumulation of its U.S. stock also caused it to initially trade at a premium to its South Korean shares, which were much harder to purchase.

But today, SK Hynix's stock trades at just five times next year's earnings. Micron and Sandisk trade at six and seven times forward earnings, respectively. While SK Hynix isn't growing as quickly as its smaller rival Micron, it's growing a lot faster than Sandisk.

Korean inheritance tax actually creates a perverse incentive to keep the stock price LOW, not high. This is the part that flips the "buy borrow die" logic on its head. Korea has some of the highest inheritance/gift taxes in the world (up to 60% on major shareholdings), assessed based on market value at time of transfer. Chaebol families have a long, well-documented history of preferring depressed share prices specifically to minimize the tax bill when passing control to the next generation — the opposite of the US "buy borrow die" strategy, where a high, liquid stock price is the asset you borrow against. In Korea, a high stock price is a tax liability at succession, not a borrowing tool.

Executive comp isn't equity-heavy the way it is in the US. Chaebol leadership isn't compensated primarily in stock options/RSUs tied to share price the way US CEOs are, so there's less direct personal financial incentive linking "stock price up" to "my paycheck up."

Put together: the people who actually control SK Hynix's capital allocation decisions don't have their personal wealth linked to the Hynix share price the way a US founder-CEO would, and in some ways they're structurally incentivized toward the opposite. That's the core of the "Korea discount" — control and cash-flow rights are separated in a way that just doesn't exist in most US public companies.

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