According to BlockBeats, on July 27th, Bernstein stated in its latest report that Naver's board of directors has approved a private placement of 7.2 million common shares to NVIDIA at a price of 204,500 won per share, raising approximately 1.5 trillion won (about US$1 billion). Upon completion of the transaction, NVIDIA is expected to hold approximately 5% of Naver's shares, becoming one of its significant strategic shareholders.
Bernstein believes that NVIDIA's investment will strengthen market confidence in Naver AI Factory. As global investment in AI infrastructure continues to expand, chip supply, capital support, cloud infrastructure, and downstream demand are rapidly becoming intertwined. Naver, along with NVIDIA and Brookfield, had previously planned to jointly invest in gigawatt-scale, multi-tenant AI cloud infrastructure to provide computing power support for next-generation AI companies in South Korea and the United States.
The report points out that Naver's AI Factory is closer to a "neocloud" collaboration model: infrastructure investors provide capital, chip manufacturers support computing power deployment, AI ecosystem partners contribute demand and model capabilities, and Naver acts in the middle, responsible for organizing and operating the entire technology stack. With NVIDIA becoming a shareholder, market concerns about hardware procurement, demand visibility, and long-term ecosystem support are expected to be reduced, and the feasibility of subsequent SPV financing and external capital raising will be improved.
Bernstein maintains its "Outperform" rating on Naver with a target price of 330,000 won. Based on the closing price of 209,500 won on July 24, this represents a potential upside of approximately 58%.