Wall Street’s biggest financial institutions have collected a substantial payday following their work on SK Hynix’s enormous share offering, pulling in close to $260 million in fees — a welcome windfall after earning a relatively slim cut from SpaceX’s historic stock market debut just weeks earlier.
According to filings from SK Hynix, the fees represented roughly 0.97% of the total amount raised in the deal. That percentage was actually higher than what bankers received for their work on SpaceX’s initial public offering, where advisors took home $500 million — or about 0.67% — of the $75 billion raised. SpaceX’s IPO broke the previous record set by Saudi Aramco back in 2019, and also surpassed SK Hynix’s own U.S. listing this week in total size.
Citigroup came out on top among the banks advising on the SK Hynix deal, earning more than $70 million — a figure that exceeded what other banks on the transaction received by about 20%, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter. That source asked not to be identified because the information is confidential. Citigroup served as both a joint global coordinator and the depository bank for the offering. The bank declined to offer any comment on its fee earnings.
Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan also served as global coordinators on the deal. JPMorgan declined to comment, while Bank of America and Goldman Sachs did not respond to requests for a statement.
South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix raised approximately $26.5 billion through the offering after setting its U.S. stock price at $149 per depository receipt. That price represented a 2.7% premium above the company’s average share price on the Seoul exchange over the prior three trading days.
