Investing.com — Nasdaq Inc. President Nelson Griggs said the blockbuster listing is prompting other international companies to consider the US for initial public offerings or American depositary receipt sales.
Griggs spoke Friday after returning from a trip to Europe where he met with companies. He said foreign issuers interested in the US market fall into two categories: early-stage companies that have not yet listed anywhere, and established firms with existing local listings that are considering adding ADRs.
“We’re having more of those conversations than ADR-type listings, but both have a lot of momentum behind them,” Griggs said in a Bloomberg Television interview, moments after Hynix’s ADRs began trading.
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The ADRs rose almost 20% in intraday trading above their offering price. The South Korean chipmaker raised $26.5 billion in the largest-ever US listing by a foreign company.
“If you look at, this year, the top 10 raises — four have been international,” Griggs said. Those companies chose US capital markets because they believed they would receive the best valuation there, he said.
Griggs credited JPMorgan Chase & Co., which was among the big Wall Street banks leading the offering, for striking the right pricing balance. A non-ADR IPO would typically price off comparable domestic equities, he said, while this deal also had to account for Micron Technology Inc., a large US comparable company.
“JPMorgan did a very nice job here getting that price to a point where we are seeing some nice upward price action,” he said. “It is very stable at the moment.”
SK Hynix Chairman Chey Tae-won’s stated intention to monitor the ADRs’ stability before considering a return to US capital markets is typical behavior for seasoned public companies, Griggs said.
“Companies typically will come back to the market,” he said. “They will be evaluating where they get the best valuation for those shares.” For a company of SK Hynix’s maturity, future fundraising would most likely take the form of additional ADR issuance rather than a traditional IPO structure, Griggs said.
He declined to comment when asked about a potential US listing by SK Hynix competitor Samsung Electronics Co., saying that Nasdaq doesn’t discuss prospective deals until they become public.