이 기사는 2021년 03월 22일 08:00 thebell 에 표출된 기사입니다.

South Korea’s internet giant Naver has received ratings from global credit rating agencies S&P Global Ratings and Moody’s, paving the way to sell bonds in the global markets.

Moody’s and S&P have assigned Naver ratings of A3 and A- respectively with a stable outlook on Thursday.

Naver has become the first internet company in the nation with global credit ratings and the sixth non-financial company with credit ratings of A or above, following Samsung Electronics, Samsung SDS, SK Telecom, SK Broadband and KT.

The internet portal will now be able to raise funds in the global financial markets, which will help the company to make overseas investments more smoothly.

Naver has mainly used treasury stocks or cash to secure capital for investments. The company has partnered with Mirae Asset Daewoo to enhance its finance business and strengthened alliance with CJ Group and Shinsegae Group via stock swaps to boost its commerce and content businesses.

The company had more than 1.68 million treasury shares at the end of 2020, which is estimated to be worth around 6.67 trillion won ($5.9 billion) based on the closing price on Tuesday. It also had 2.81 trillion won in cash and cash equivalents at the end of last year.

With the internet giant starting to seek investment opportunities in the overseas companies, it won’t be able to fund its investments in the ways it previously did. Despite the company's strong position as a leading search and e-commerce platform operator in the country, stocks of domestic companies are relatively less attractive to foreign companies. It will also be a big burden for Naver to pay global deals that are larger than domestic ones with cash or treasury stocks.

Park Sang-jin, Naver's chief financial officer, said earlier this year that the company plans to issue bonds at home and aboard to secure funds for its growth, signalling a change of its financial strategy. Naver’s debt ratio stood at around 106.1% on a consolidated basis at the end of 2020.

Naver recently invested 115 million euros in Spanish virtual marketplace Wallapop. It mainly used cash to fund the investment.

The company also announcement its 660 billion won investment in Wattpad, the world's largest web novel platform based in Toronto, with cash probably used to fund the investment. Market insiders said the company needs to diversify its fundraising channels in order for future expansion.

“Naver is actively recruiting experts in the global mergers and acquisitions field,” said an industry source. “It is highly likely to make additional investments in foreign companies in the near future.” (Reporting by Ha-na Suh)