Naver Financial and Dunamu push their share swap to March 2027 in a third delay

All three moves have been exactly one quarter, from one quarter-end to the next ^[14]. The shareholder vote moved every time, and each meeting was rescheduled before it could be held ^{[17][6][7][2]}. The latest notice, Dunamu's Oct. 7 disclosure, came 15 days before the Oct. 22 record date it replaced ^[16].

Two sets of approvals are still outstanding. One is a Korea Fair Trade Commission business combination review. The other is financial-sector procedures tied to the change in Naver Financial's major shareholder structure and to notifications about Dunamu's major shareholders ^[3]. When Naver Financial pushed the deal to December in July, it said it needed time to account for the KFTC review and filings with financial regulators ^[8]. Dunamu now says both sides are submitting requested materials and explaining why the deal is needed ^[11]. "We will faithfully undergo the reviews and various procedures necessary to close the transaction," a Dunamu official said ^[10].

Closing would put Dunamu, the operator of the Upbit exchange, under Naver Financial, itself a subsidiary of Naver ^[12]. For a listing of that combined group, the only commitment on record is a committee ^[5]. Naver Financial has made no final decision on a listing timetable or an execution plan, so no capital-markets work is scheduled before the swap closes ^[5].

If the reviews clear before the Jan. 18 record date, shareholders vote on Feb. 26 and the shares are exchanged on March 31 ^[2]. If they run past January, a fourth notice adding another quarter would match the first three ^[14]. The third possibility comes from crypto rules still being written. In September, researchers discussed a scenario in which a cap on major shareholders of exchanges would collide with the minimum stakes holding companies must keep in subsidiaries ^[18]. Financial regulators said then that no final cap had been decided, and the issue could affect Naver Financial if its corporate status changes after the deal ^[19].

I think the second path is more likely than the first. The October notice lists the same open reviews Naver Financial cited in July, and they are still under way ^[3][8][1]. The counter-case is that a regulator still asking for documents may be close to a decision, and Dunamu's account of supplying requested materials fits that reading too ^[11]. If a later notice changes the exchange ratio, the delays were partly about price and the regulatory explanation was incomplete. crypto.news did not report the ratio, only that the companies have kept it ^[4].