VivoPower International PLC announced that its digital asset unit, Vivo Federation, has entered into a definitive joint venture agreement with Lean Ventures, an established and licensed South Korean asset manager, headquartered in Seoul. Under the terms of the joint venture agreement, Lean Ventures will arrange for the establishment of a dedicated investment vehicle to acquire and hold an initial target of $300 million of Ripple Labs shares. Lean Ventures has already canvassed interest from qualified South Korean institutional and retail investors.
Vivo Federation?s role in the Lean Ventures joint venture is to originate and procure Ripple Labs shares on behalf of the dedicated investment vehicle. VivoPower recently received written approval from Ripple Labs to purchase an initial tranche of Ripple Labs preferred shares and is now negotiating bilaterally to purchase additional Ripple Labs shares from institutional holders of Ripple Labs shares worth an estimated $300 million. As part of the joint venture, Vivo Federation will receive a share of management fees and performance carry, which would target a net economic return for VivoPower of $75 million over 3 years based on an initial $300 million of assets under management.
The structure of this agreement allows VivoPower to gain economic exposure to any future upside in the value of Ripple Labs and underlying XRP holdings, without committing capital from its own balance sheet.
