Korean Internet Company Naver Corp. Assigned 'A-' Rating With Stable Outlook; Proposed U.S. Dollar Notes Rated 'A-'

We expect Naver Corp. to maintain its strong market position in Korea's growing online advertising and e-commerce market by strengthening its ecosystem that spans search engine, e-commerce, and payment solutions. In our view, Naver will generate robust free operating cash flows and maintain an adjusted debt-to-EBITDA ratio of less than 0.5x over the next two years, despite increasing capital expenditure and potential acquisitions. We are assigning our 'A-' long-term issuer credit rating to Naver and our 'A-' long-term issue rating to the company's proposed senior unsecured U.S. dollar notes. The stable outlook reflects our expectation that Naver's e-commerce and fintech revenue will grow more than 20% and EBITDA from these businesses will rise by a high single-digit percentage over the

...March 17, 2021 - We expect Naver Corp. to maintain its strong market position in Korea's growing online advertising and e-commerce market by strengthening its ecosystem that spans search engine, e-commerce, and payment solutions. - In our view, Naver will generate robust free operating cash flows and maintain an adjusted debt-to-EBITDA ratio of less than 0.5x over the next two years, despite increasing capital expenditure and potential acquisitions. - We are assigning our 'A-' long-term issuer credit rating to Naver and our 'A-' long-term issue rating to the company's proposed senior unsecured U.S. dollar notes. - The stable outlook reflects our expectation that Naver's e-commerce and fintech revenue will grow more than 20% and EBITDA from these businesses will rise by a high single-digit percentage over the next 24 months. We also expect the company to maintain its conservative financial policy over the period. HONG KONG (S&P Global Ratings) March 17, 2021--S&P Global Ratings today took...

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