Key points
- Nvidia will receive 6.56 million Naver shares for $1 billion
- A stronger won cut Nvidia's Naver share count by 9.4%
- Naver trades 17% below Nvidia's purchase price
Naver (035420) has set the final number of shares it will sell to Nvidia (NVDA), 6,558,435 shares for $1 billion. That's 683,129 fewer shares than Naver estimated in July, according to its November 3 filing on Korea's disclosure system, DART.
The price per share hasn't changed. It's still 204,500 won ($152). But the won has strengthened since July, so Nvidia's $1 billion converts into fewer won and buys fewer shares.
Naver closed at 169,000 won ($126) on Tuesday, down 3.65% as the Kospi fell 3.59%. That's about 17% below Nvidia's purchase price, by our calculations. Nvidia is due to pay on Friday, November 6.
A stronger won cut Nvidia's share count by 9.4%
When Naver first filed the deal on July 27, it turned the $1 billion into won at 1,480.9 won to the dollar, the rate on the day before its board approved the sale. That came to 1.4809 trillion won, or 7,241,564 shares at 204,500 won each. The July filing called that number an estimate.
The final count uses the exchange rate posted around 4 p.m. Seoul time on November 3, three business days before payment. Based on the final share count, that rate was about 1,341.2 won to the dollar, by our calculations. The $1 billion now comes to 1.3412 trillion won ($1B), and dividing that by 204,500 won gives 6,558,435 shares.
A dollar now buys 9.4% fewer won than it did in July, so Nvidia gets 9.4% fewer shares. At Tuesday's close, those shares are worth about 1.108 trillion won ($826M), by our calculations.
Nvidia will still be Naver's third-largest shareholder
Naver had 152,126,544 shares before the sale, according to the filing. With the new count, Nvidia will own about 4.1% of the company after the sale, down from the 4.5% expected in July, by our calculations.
That still puts Nvidia third. The National Pension Service holds 9.49% of Naver and BlackRock holds 7.31%, CEO Score Daily (CEO스코어데일리) reported on October 30. Both stakes will get a little smaller when the new shares are issued.
Nvidia will also still own more of Naver than its founder, Lee Hae-jin, who chairs the board. CEO Score Daily estimated his stake would fall from 4.03% to about 3.84% under the July numbers. With fewer new shares, it comes to about 3.86%, by our calculations.
Naver met the deal's one condition
Nvidia's investment depended on one thing. Naver had to secure at least $9 billion of computing infrastructure for its AI Factory business, not counting Nvidia's money. The new filing says that's done.
"We have met the condition precedent, so the payment date has been set for November 6, 2026," the filing said.
The AI Factory is the data center project Naver announced with Nvidia and the Canadian investment firm Brookfield in July, at Naver's campus in Sejong. At the time, Brookfield signed a non-binding letter of intent for up to $9 billion, as we reported. The filing doesn't say how Naver secured the $9 billion of infrastructure.
The new shares are scheduled to list on November 27. Under the deal, Nvidia can't sell them for one year after they're registered, according to the filing.
Meanwhile, Naver shares have fallen 24.9% since July 27, when they closed at 225,000 won ($168) on the day the deal was announced.
The filing is translated from Korean. Won figures are converted at about 1,341.2 won to the dollar, the rate used to set Nvidia's final share count on November 3, 2026, by our calculations.
