SK Hynix Plans $71 Billion Shareholder Return, Including 40 Trillion Won Buyback

South Korea's high-bandwidth memory (HBM) giant SK Hynix (000660KS) is reportedly planning to launch the largest shareholder return program in its corporate history.

According to an earlier report by The Korea Economic Daily, SK Hynix is internally evaluating a shareholder return plan totaling approximately 100 trillion won ($71 billion), including a share buyback worth around 40 trillion won.

In terms of share capital, this buyback amount represents slightly over 2% of total outstanding shares—nearly equivalent in scale to the company's previous fundraising through American Depositary Receipts (ADR) in the U.S. market.

If the final plan is approved and implemented, the scale would significantly surpass last year's combined cash dividends and treasury stock cancellation totaling about 14.3 trillion won.

Industry analysts note that the proposed 40 trillion won buyback, representing just over 2% of total shares, closely matches the approximate 2.5% dilution caused by the company's prior ADR issuance. The market widely interprets this buyback as a strategic move by SK Hynix to effectively offset the equity dilution from its ADR offering.

For comparison, last year SK Hynix paid out 2.1 trillion won in cash dividends and canceled 12.2 trillion won worth of treasury stock, totaling approximately 14.3 trillion won—equivalent to about 2.1% of total shares canceled.

In other words, if the 100 trillion won plan is fully realized, the annual shareholder return would be several times larger than last year's.

On dividends, SK Hynix announced on the 7th a quarterly cash dividend of 375 won per share, amounting to a total of 273.3 billion won. Based on ordinary shares, this represents a dividend yield of approximately 0.02%. The ex-dividend date is set for the 31st of this month, with the company expected to complete the payout within one month of that date.

Notably, the company also disclosed in the announcement that it is currently reviewing additional shareholder value enhancement measures, with specific details expected to be finalized in the third quarter.

This indicates that the timeline for a plan previously expected to be unveiled only by year-end has been significantly accelerated—an action widely seen as a strong positive signal to shareholders.

Analysts suggest that SK Hynix's confidence in proposing such a massive return program stems primarily from its near-monopoly leadership in the HBM market and the highly optimistic profit outlook that follows.

Financial data platform EpicAI forecasts that SK Hynix will achieve revenues of 345.6 trillion won and operating profit of 266.4 trillion won this year—representing year-on-year increases of approximately 256% and 464% respectively—marking an extraordinary growth trajectory.

Company executives stated clearly during last month's Q2 earnings call that in the second half of the year, with significantly increased shipments of the sixth-generation HBM product, HBM4, alongside rising deliveries of advanced general-purpose DRAM, overall shipment performance is expected to exceed that of the first half.

This outlook provides solid fundamental support for market expectations surrounding this massive shareholder return initiative.