SK Hynix U.S. Listing Drives Q3 IPO Volume to $36.1 Billion
nashnova research
SK Hynix's $26.5 billion ADR offering carried Q3's US IPO total, yet strip out mega-deals and smaller listings returned negative 4% — a widening gap that is testing institutional appetite for new stock.
How did one deal carry an entire quarter?
SK Hynix raised $26.5 billion via ADRs — American depositary receipts, the standard vehicle for foreign companies listing in the US — accounting for the bulk of Q3's $36.1 billion IPO total.
That makes it the second-busiest quarter since 2021, behind only Q2 this year when SpaceX headlined a record $117 billion.
This means → Q3's "boom" rested almost entirely on a single mega-deal; underlying market activity was far thinner than the headline number suggests.
Big names rally, smaller deals sink — how wide is the gap?
SK Hynix has climbed 24% since listing; SpaceX gained 12% over the same period. Together they lifted this year's IPO weighted-average return to 8.8%.
Csquare and Jersey Mike's, by contrast, both fell more than 25% below their offer prices.
In plain terms = remove the handful of mega-caps and the rest of this year's new listings returned negative 4% — the IPOs most ordinary investors can access are, on balance, losing money.
Why are institutions reluctant to buy in?
Renos Savvides, head of equity capital markets at Neuberger Berman, said long-only funds lack conviction on whether they need to own recent IPOs.
His words: "Whenever you get this kind of volatility in the IPO market, you need either a bulletproof deal or a compelling enough valuation to give investors confidence in the outcome."
This reflects a broader retreat in institutional risk appetite for new issues — even with benchmark indices near all-time highs, three sizable IPOs (Holtec Nuclear, Bamboo Insurance, Oura) were shelved in September.
Why is the Anthropic listing this year's decisive test?
US IPO proceeds for the year stand at $162.6 billion, roughly $32.6 billion short of the 2021 full-year record of $195.2 billion.
This means → if Anthropic raises on a scale comparable to SpaceX or larger, the annual total will almost certainly break the record.
In plain terms = whether Anthropic lists, and at what price, will serve as both a real-time stress test of AI valuations and the ultimate measure of whether the market can still absorb another mega-deal.
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