Naver surged more than 8% on optimism over Nvidia's strategic investment and expectations for building global AI infrastructure. Adding to the momentum was the prospect of regulatory easing, which had been seen as an obstacle to Naver's acquisition of Dunamu, drawing in a wave of buying from retail investors.
Nvidia, Brookfield Join In: "Korea a Key Hub for AI Industry"
According to the Korea Exchange on the 27th, Naver closed at 225,000 won, up 8.43% from the previous trading session. Retail investors net-purchased 71.5 billion won worth of Naver shares that day, making it the fourth-most-bought stock after Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, and Samsung Electro-Mechanics.
Behind the share price rally were Nvidia's strategic investment and a mega-scale AI infrastructure project. Naver disclosed that day that it would conduct a third-party allotment paid-in capital increase worth $1 billion (about 1.48 trillion won). The investor is Nvidia, and once the new share issuance is completed, Nvidia will secure a 4.5% stake in Naver.
The investment is part of an AI factory project worth a total of $10 billion (about 14.6 trillion won) being pursued by Naver, Nvidia, and global alternative investment firm Brookfield. Nvidia will handle GPU technology and strategic investment, while Brookfield plans to support the construction of computing infrastructure and data centers worth about $9 billion through project financing (PF).
Brookfield reaffirmed its commitment to cooperation in a statement that day, assessing Korea as a key hub for the AI industry. The company said, "Korea is a country with sufficient capability to grow into a global AI leader," adding, "For this, building national-level AI infrastructure is more important than anything else."
It continued, "Brookfield holds expertise across the entire AI infrastructure spectrum, including energy, data centers, computing infrastructure, and AI operational capabilities," stressing, "We will continue to expand cooperation with Naver and Nvidia to contribute to building Korea's AI ecosystem."
Earlier, Naver and Nvidia signed an AI factory investment contract on the 24th at Nvidia's headquarters in Santa Clara, California, and Brookfield is in talks to sign a formal contract to participate in the project.
Share Buyback Cancellation, Dunamu Regulatory Easing Also Boost Sentiment
It was not only the AI business that stimulated investment sentiment. Naver decided to cancel 4.9 million treasury shares worth about 1 trillion won on the 3rd of next month, also unveiling a shareholder return policy.
In addition, expectations that regulatory burdens surrounding the Dunamu acquisition process could ease also lent support to the share price rise.
According to the IT industry, the presidential Regulatory Rationalization Committee held a growth subcommittee meeting on the 24th, reviewed the amendment to the enforcement decree of the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information (the Specified Financial Information Act), which is scheduled to take effect in August, and then recommended a direction toward establishing exceptions to the criteria for reviewing the eligibility of major shareholders of virtual asset service providers.
The existing amendment had drawn criticism for being excessively strict, as it was designed to effectively block the reporting of major shareholder changes if there was a history of violating economic-related laws.
Naver is currently proceeding with the process of incorporating Dunamu as a wholly owned subsidiary through Naver Financial. However, concerns had been raised that the process could be affected by the major shareholder eligibility review, as Naver had a record of receiving a fine last year for a violation of the Fair Trade Act. The market expects that if the discussion on this system improvement materializes, some of the related uncertainty could be resolved.
