Bernstein: Naver’s target price points to 58% upside from current levels, with a major boost to confidence in its AI Factory strategy.

In its latest report, Bernstein stated 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, or roughly $10 billion. Upon completion of the transaction, NVIDIA will hold around 5% of Naver’s shares, becoming one of the company’s key strategic shareholders. Bernstein believes NVIDIA’s stake will bolster market confidence in Naver’s AI Factory. As global AI infrastructure investment continues to expand, chip supply, capital support, cloud infrastructure, and downstream demand are accelerating their integration. Naver, NVIDIA, and Brookfield had previously planned to jointly invest in gigawatt-scale, multi-tenant AI cloud infrastructure to deliver computing power support for next-generation AI enterprises in South Korea and the U.S. The report notes that Naver’s AI Factory aligns more closely with the "neocloud" collaboration model: infrastructure investors provide capital, chip vendors support computing power deployment, AI ecosystem partners contribute demand and model capabilities, while Naver acts as the central coordinator responsible for organizing and operating the entire technology stack. With NVIDIA as a shareholder, concerns over hardware procurement, demand visibility, and long-term ecosystem support are expected to ease, enhancing the feasibility of subsequent SPV financing and external capital raising. Bernstein maintains an "Outperform" rating on Naver, with a target price of 330,000 won. Based on Naver’s July 24 closing price of 209,500 won, this implies a potential upside of approximately 58%.