AI NewsWaveNvidia to Pay In $1 Billion to Naver on Nov. 6, Becoming No. 3 Shareholder
Key points
- Payment date Nov. 6, $1 billion
- Nvidia set to become Naver's third-largest shareholder
- $9 billion Brookfield deal was a precondition
Naver disclosed on the 30th that the payment date for its third-party allotment rights offering to Nvidia has been set for Nov. 6. According to AI Times, the investment is $1 billion, or about 1.34 trillion won, and the new shares are scheduled to be listed on Nov. 27. Won conversions differed by outlet: IT Chosun and Industry News gave about 1.3 trillion won, TechM wrote 1.35 trillion won in its headline, and iNews24 wrote 1.4 trillion won in its headline.
Stakes and shareholder rankings were also reported. Digital Today and Industry News reported that once the payment is completed, Nvidia will hold about 4.54% of Naver. Digital Today said Nvidia is expected to become the third-largest shareholder, after the National Pension Service and BlackRock. Citing filings with the Financial Supervisory Service, TheElec reported that Naver Chairman Lee Hae-jin, the previous No. 3 shareholder, drops one spot to fourth, and TechM noted that Nvidia will hold a larger stake than Lee.
The way the investment was finalized is tied to a precondition. TechM reported that the investment was confirmed after Naver completed the preconditions of the share subscription agreement that Naver and Nvidia signed in July. Naver said earlier, on the 27th, that it had signed a $9 billion (about 12 trillion won) computing infrastructure deal with Brookfield, satisfying the precondition for Nvidia's strategic equity investment. AI Times reported that the 1-gigawatt (GW) global AI infrastructure project being pursued by Naver, Nvidia and Brookfield is expected to get under way in earnest.
Explanations of how the money will be used also emerged. According to Digital Daily, most of the funds raised in this rights offering will go into the AI factory business from next year onward. Bloter reported that combining Nvidia's AI infrastructure technology with Naver's data center operations and cloud capabilities is expected to give Naver a foothold to leap beyond developing its own AI models and become a global AI computing infrastructure provider.
In recent developments, Digital Today reported on the 27th that, ahead of the payment, Naver's AI factory business was being put to the test, and that to receive the payment it had to meet the precondition of securing computing infrastructure worth at least $9 billion. The payment date was then set in the filing on the 30th.
Glossary A third-party allotment rights offering is a method in which a company issues new shares to a specifically chosen party rather than existing shareholders and receives funds in return.