Morgan Stanley missed out on the $26.5 billion IPO lead underwriter qualification for SK Hynix after repeatedly issuing bearish research reports on South Korea’s semiconductor industry.

According to ChainCatcher, citing the Korean media outlet Chosun Ilbo, Morgan Stanley was not selected as the sole lead underwriter for SK Hynix's American Depositary Receipt (ADR) listing in the US, a deal valued at approximately $26.5 billion (about 40 trillion Korean won), marking the largest IPO in the US by a foreign company. Based on a 0.5% underwriting fee rate, the commission is estimated at around $130 million. The final underwriting syndicate consists of Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan. Industry experts generally believe that Morgan Stanley's failure to be selected is linked to its repeated negative reports on Korean semiconductor companies.

These reports were authored by Shawn Kim, a Korean managing director, who in 2017, 2021, 2024 and on June 6 this year issued several reports downgrading the stock ratings of memory companies such as Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron. Notably, the 2021 report was titled “Memory, Winter is Coming”. In addition, Morgan Stanley has recently encountered several setbacks in Korea: as a joint underwriter for SpaceX’s IPO, Mirae Asset Global Investments of Korea applied for $1.14 billion but received zero allocation; and the joint sale of IGIS Asset Management with Goldman Sachs also ended in failure. Morgan Stanley’s largest shareholder is Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) of Japan, which holds about 24% of the shares.