Lee Gyu-lee is a business writer at The Korea Times, focusing primarily on IT & telecommunications, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and KOTRA. Prior to this, she has covered a wide range of cultural news, from film, television and K-pop to lifestyle and fashion.
Nvidia takes 4.5% stake in Naver with $1 bil. strategic investment
Naver Chairman Lee Hae-jin, right, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang shake hands after signing a $1 billion strategic investment agreement at Nvidia's headquarters in California, Friday (local time). Courtesy of Naver
By Lee Gyu-lee
Nvidia has agreed to acquire a 4.5 percent stake in Naver through a $1 billion strategic investment, deepening a partnership aimed at building large-scale artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and expanding sovereign AI services.
Naver announced on Monday that it had signed an agreement to issue about 7.24 million new shares to Nvidia through a third-party allotment, marking its first such share sale in 22 years and the first since transferring its listing to the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) market in 2008.
The new shares, priced at 204,500 won ($140) each, represent a 4.5 percent stake in the company. The payment is scheduled for Oct. 30.
The company said it would cancel about 4.9 million treasury shares worth about 1 trillion won on Aug. 3 to offset shareholder dilution from the new share issuance. Following the cancellation, Nvidia is expected to become Naver's third-largest shareholder, behind the National Pension Service and BlackRock.
The investment follows an agreement between the two companies in June to jointly develop gigawatt-scale AI factories, expanding their partnership beyond Nvidia's role in supplying graphics processing units (GPUs).