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US Listing? Me too says Kioxia NAND fabber and SSD shipper Kioxia is preparing a US share listing, emulating SK Hynix which entered the Nasdaq market in July. Like Hynix, Kioxia would use American Depositary Shares (ADS) and aim to ingest extra cash from a share sale and increase the number of its investors. Its idea first appeared in May. A month later, CFO Yoshihiko Kawamura said it was a “highly meaningful project,” during Kioxia’s 2026 annual shareholders’ meeting, and Kioxia was targeting a Nasdaq entry in the April-June 2027 period. Kioxia ADS’ already trade in the US, but they are not sponsored by Kioxia and trade over-the-counter on OTC Markets’ Pink Limited tier, which has limited issuer reporting and disclosure, meaning a higher risk to investors. A Nasdag listing would involve Kioxia formally sponsoring its ADS shares and lowering investor risk. Kawamura also said Kioxia was considering a share split in Japan as its share prices have increased around 900 percent since the start of 2026, passing ¥100,000 ($620) recently. That’s due to the AI boom increased SSD demand, with under-supply generating price rises and a huge increase in revenues and profitability for Kioxia. Now Reuters has published an interview with a $14 billion, AI-focussed, Voya vestment fund’s portfolio manager in which he says he’s interested in the idea, as a US listing would make it easier to invest in Kioxia. Early in September, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won suggested that an SK Hynix partnership with Kioxia, which has manufacturing JV with Sandisk, could be interesting. Kioxia CEO Hiroo Ota told The Japan Times: “We can’t just say, ‘Well then, let’s make it three companies,’” … We have no idea what prompted (Chey) to say what he did.” There are no ongoing talks between Kioxia and SK Hynix and the temperature between the two looks frosty. Bootnote There are existing links between Kioxia and SK Hynix; - Kioxia uses SK Hynix DRAM in some of its SSDs, - Kioxia JV partner Sandisk is involved in SK Hynix High-Bandwidth Flash (HBF) initiative, - SK Hynix is a Kioxia investor through holding convertible bonds that could be converted into a 14.19 percent share holding with voting rights. This would be the largest single voting share holding. SK Hynix could initiate conversion simply by deciding to do so; it has that right. However, Japanese government approval would be needed for this as it gives a foreign company a degree of voting control over a Japanese company.
document fetched 2026-09-15 02:51 · canonical https://blocksandfiles.com/flash/2026/09/14/us-listing-me-too-says-kioxia/5296100