Naver Decides Not to Acquire Baemin Stake Citing "Changes in Management Environment"

Naver has made the final decision not to acquire a stake in Baemin, the number one food delivery service in the domestic delivery app market.

Naver announced in an explanatory disclosure on the 17th, "We reviewed the acquisition of a stake in Baemin, but due to changes in the business environment and other factors, we have decided not to proceed with the acquisition."

Naver Headquarters in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

In May of this year, a media outlet reported that Uber and Naver had formed a consortium to acquire Delivery Hero (DH), the largest shareholder of Baemin. According to industry sources, the estimated transaction size discussed at the time was around 8 trillion won. When the acquisition was under discussion, ownership was reportedly expected to be split 20% for Naver and 80% for Uber. At the time, Naver stated, "We are reviewing various measures to strengthen our business competitiveness," but also disclosed, "No concrete decisions have been made."

Reports on Naver's potential acquisition of Baemin led the industry to interpret this move as a strategic investment aimed at enhancing its commerce competitiveness. In October last year, Naver entered into a partnership with Uber, providing Naver Plus Membership users with free access to Uber's paid membership program 'Uber One,' which offers up to 10% in taxi fare rewards.

Uber's U.S. headquarters is currently seeking to acquire Delivery Hero. Delivery Hero is the parent company of Woowa Brothers, the operator of Baemin. In July, Uber announced plans to make a public tender offer to Delivery Hero shareholders, offering 41.5 euros per share (approximately 65,000 won) in cash. Based on the acquisition of 100% of Delivery Hero shares, the tender offer would be valued at $14.8 billion (about 20 trillion won). Uber has already secured approximately 24.99% of DH's voting shares.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.