SK Hynix’s $26.5 billion listing leads US IPOs in third quarter

SK Hynix’s $26.5 billion US listing accounted for most of the $36.1 billion raised through US IPOs in the third quarter, Bloomberg reported, as smaller offerings faced postponements and weak returns.

The South Korean memory chipmaker sold American depositary receipts. Bloomberg’s quarterly total, covering the three months through September 30, excludes blank-check companies and other investment vehicles.

The quarter was the second-busiest for US IPOs since 2021, behind the second quarter of 2026, when SpaceX and other issuers raised $117 billion.

Holtec Nuclear, Bamboo Insurance Services and Oura postponed IPOs in September, citing market conditions despite stock benchmarks reaching record highs.

Renos Savvides, Neuberger Berman’s head of equity capital markets, told Bloomberg that institutional investors, particularly long-only investors, lacked conviction about owning many recent listings. He said successful deals needed strong fundamentals or attractive valuations.

SpaceX and SK Hynix were up 12% and 24%, respectively, from their IPO prices at the time of the report. Their gains lifted the weighted-average return for this year’s US IPOs to 8.8%, Bloomberg data showed.

Excluding offerings that raised more than $10 billion, the weighted-average return was a loss of 4%. Bloomberg attributed the weaker performance to investors becoming more selective about AI-related businesses and higher rates pressuring growth stocks.

SK Hynix, Bending Spoons, Csquare and Jersey Mike’s each raised more than $1 billion in the third quarter. Csquare and Jersey Mike’s were trading at least 25% below their IPO prices.

US IPOs have raised $162.6 billion this year. An Anthropic offering matching or exceeding SpaceX’s would take annual proceeds above the $195.2 billion record set in 2021, according to Bloomberg.