SK Hynix nears completion of 40 trillion won share buyback

The program, launched in August, is expected to wrap around October 21, Business Today reported.

SK Hynix is expected to complete its 40 trillion won ($28 billion) share buyback around October 21, according to Business Today (Malaysia), following purchases that began on August 20 and ran for roughly three months. The company said in August it would buy back and cancel the shares, a move the Korea Herald reported as the largest cancellation of treasury shares by a listed South Korean company.

By October 19, SK Hynix had repurchased 22.75 million of the 24.07 million shares covered by the program, about 3.3% of its 730 million shares outstanding, according to Business Today and the Kallabout investors guide.

In pre-market trading on Wednesday, SK Hynix shares rose 7.44% to 1.314 million won, Business Today reported, a day after the stock fell to an intraday low of 1.183 million won, its first break below 1.2 million won in about six months. BigGo Finance reported that Tuesday's drop came partly as the buyback's approaching end removed a source of demand, and that foreign investors sold a net 9.612 trillion won of SK Hynix shares during October amid the program's wind-down.

The buyback, once complete, would remove 40 trillion won worth of shares from the float at a point when SK Hynix has mostly been moving on memory cycle and AI demand headlines rather than on capital-return news. Unlike the Solidigm IPO, framed as a distant and contingent catalyst, a finished repurchase is an immediate, mechanical cut to share count that lifts per-share metrics regardless of how the AI capex narrative develops. It also points to management confidence that cash generation can support a buyback of this size rather than diverting capital toward capacity spending.