SK hynix halts review of Solidigm IPO over governance concerns

SK hynix halted its review of an initial public offering for its US NAND subsidiary Solidigm on 23 October 2026, according to inews24.com. The decision follows objections to a five-tier governance structure running from SK Inc. down to Solidigm, and criticism from financial authorities that a duplicate listing would dilute shareholder value.

The subsidiary matters to SK hynix's standing in NAND. In the second quarter of 2026 the company held a 22% share of NAND shipments, with Solidigm providing 9 percentage points of that figure. Without Solidigm, the share would be 13%, putting SK hynix third behind YMTC at 14%.

SK hynix has said Solidigm needs to secure new US production facilities to meet growing AI memory demand. SK Group acquired SK hynix in 2012 under chairman Chey Tae-won, and the chipmaker bought Intel's NAND business in 2020 for about 12 trillion won, a deal that led to Solidigm's creation.

Rivals are moving ahead with their own plans. YMTC intends to raise 33 billion yuan through an IPO for production facilities and next-generation products, while Kioxia is preparing an ADS listing and plans about 5 trillion yen in investment through 2032 with support from SanDisk and the Japanese government.

On 19 October 2026, SK hynix president Kwak Noh-jung said at a meeting in Yongin that the company must strengthen its ecosystem further. The NAND business has swung sharply in the past: SK hynix posted an operating loss of over 7.7 trillion won in 2023 after the market downturn that began in 2019. UBS has forecast that Samsung Electronics will take first place in HBM shipments next year with 41%, ahead of SK hynix at 39%.