South Korean cryptocurrency legislation delay hampers NAVER's merger process, DS Securities lowers target price to 300k won

Deep Tide TechFlow News, April 14, according to The Asia Business Daily, DS Investment Securities released a research report lowering NAVER’s target stock price from previously to 300k Korean won, maintaining a “Buy” rating. Analyst Choi Seong-ho stated that the downgrade is mainly based on two reasons: first, NAVER’s operating profit margin is expected to decrease from 18.3% to 17.6% this year, as advertising, e-commerce marketing expenses, and depreciation costs continue to rise; second, progress in legislation related to crypto assets is slow, directly affecting NAVER Financial and Dunamu’s merger plan, with the originally scheduled September completion potentially further delayed.

Previously, DS Securities assigned a value of 15 trillion Korean won to the crypto business in the SOTP valuation, but this valuation was removed in this research report. Choi Seong-ho also said that e-commerce remains NAVER’s core growth engine in the future, with an estimated annual e-commerce sales of about 2.7 trillion Korean won.