Good morning. Another major AI supply-chain company is launching a U.S. listing. South Korean memory-chip maker SK Hynix, a key Nvidia supplier, is expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq this Friday.
This follows Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which went public on June 12, listing on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker SPCX. The IPO is said to have raised about $86 billion, making it the largest IPO in financial market history.
According to regulatory filings, SK Hynix is aiming to raise approximately $28 billion via Nasdaq-listed American Depositary Receipts. The company is a leading supplier of high-bandwidth memory. Unlike TSMC, which produces logic chips, SK Hynix focuses on memory—specifically DRAM (system memory) and NAND flash (storage used in solid-state drives).
“This is a positive indicator of the AI trade, with Korea chip plays now front and center,” Tech analyst Dan Ives told CFO Daily in an email about SK Hynix’s move to list on the Nasdaq. “The AI trade is spreading.”
Morningstar equity analyst Jing Jie Yu said SK Hynix’s U.S. listing, on its own, is unlikely to be a clear gauge of market conditions, as sentiment toward memory and tech stocks is already broadly similar across global markets.
“That said, I do believe that there is good appetite for the offering for U.S. and global investors, as it provides easier access and exposure to Korean stocks, which they might not have had prior to this,” he told me.
In a July 1 note, Morningstar raised its fair value estimate for SK Hynix, arguing the current memory upcycle is tracking much stronger than expected but that the industry remains cyclical, limiting upside at current levels, especially given how far the shares have already run. Morningstar still sees the stock trading at a discount to U.S. rival Micron.
SK Hynix’s Korea-listed shares have surged roughly 770% over the past 12 months, even after a 20% pullback from a June peak, Fortune reported. That gain exceeds Micron Technology’s roughly 700% rally over the same period.
SK Hynix’s debut may also serve as an early test of investor appetite for the next wave of large technology listings.
Late 2026 is increasingly viewed as a window for a broader wave of marquee tech and AI IPOs. General Atlantic, in a June note on the “2026 IPO comeback,” highlighted the second half of the year as a period when valuation discounts may narrow, mid-cap and underrepresented sectors re-enter the market, and investors rotate gains from mega-deals into less crowded areas beyond core AI and semiconductors.
Sheryl Estrada
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Leaderboard
Marie Washburn has been promoted to senior vice president and chief financial officer of Longeveron Inc. (Nasdaq: LGVN), a clinical-stage biotechnology company, effective July 13. She succeeds Lisa Locklear, who is stepping down to pursue board opportunities and other professional and personal interests. Washburn has served as vice president and corporate controller since November 2025 and previously held senior finance roles at Fore Biotherapeutics Inc., Axcella Health Inc. and Generation Bio, which was acquired by XOMA Royalty Corporation in February 2026.
Toby O'Brien was appointed CFO of Everfox, a cybersecurity provider. O'Brien brings more than three decades of financial leadership experience across the aerospace, defense, and communications industries. He most recently served as CFO of Intelsat, where he helped lead the company's integration planning for its merger with SES. Before that, he spent 34 years at Raytheon, serving in senior finance leadership roles across the business, including helping lead the merger of Raytheon and United Technologies.
Big Deal
Gartner predicts that by 2028, 20% of finance organizations will no longer hire or develop non-digitally literate talent. Instead, they will invest all talent-related spending in advanced digital capabilities, including AI, analytics, and automation.
The firm argues that traditional skill profiles in finance are no longer sufficient as CFOs face mounting pressure to modernize processes, support real-time decision-making and deliver more strategic insights. As a result, finance leaders are expected to prioritize roles and training that emphasize data fluency, digital tools and technology-enabled workflows, reshaping how finance teams are structured and how careers in the function evolve.
Going deeper
"Xbox’s CEO on 3,200 layoffs, four studios cut, and her blunt warning that ‘we spread ourselves too thin’" is a Fortune article by Sebastian Herrera.
Herrera writes: "The largest restructuring in the history of Microsoft’s Xbox is accelerating, in what Asha Sharma, its chief executive, described as a fundamental reset of how Xbox operates and invests. Sharma unveiled sweeping changes at the gaming unit Monday, primarily layoffs that will affect roughly 3,200 people, or 20% of staff—1,600 employees will be affected immediately, and the other 1,600 are expected to be cut over the next year." Read more here.
Overheard
“If I’m always asking AI how to respond to my boss, I don’t actually learn how to engage with my boss. I don’t actually learn how to build a relationship with my boss.”
—Leena Rinne, vice president of leadership, business, and coaching at Skillsoft, told Fortune. Rinne described a phenomenon called “socially offloading,” when interpersonal skills that require human judgment, empathy, or courage get outsourced to AI. It’s similar to “cognitive offloading,” or shifting often menial tasks to technology like AI to reduce mental effort, and has the potential to disrupt workplace culture.