Morgan Stanley lost the underwriting mandate for SK Hynix's US listing, causing intense internal reactions within the investment bank.

Odaily Planet Daily News Morgan Stanley was not selected as the sole lead underwriter for SK Hynix's American Depositary Receipt (ADR) listing. The deal is valued at approximately $26.5 billion (about 40 trillion won), making it the largest IPO by a foreign company in the US. Based on a 0.5% underwriting fee rate, the commission is estimated to be around $130 million. The final underwriting syndicate consists of Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase. Morgan Stanley had previously secured projects such as SpaceX and Anthropic and was once considered a strong contender for the OpenAI IPO mandate. Consequently, this loss is regarded internally as a reputational blow.

Industry insiders widely believe that Morgan Stanley's exclusion is linked to its repeated publication of bearish reports on South Korean semiconductors, including the famous "Memory Winter" analysis. Several investment bankers, including former Morgan Stanley executives, stated that an increasing number of people within the Seoul office believe the previous bearish reports may have cost the company the SK Hynix deal. Therefore, they will need to exercise greater caution when publishing related views in the future. (CLS)