CoreWeave CEO on Core Scientific deal as shareholder opposition rises

CoreWeave The firm has made an acquisition offer, CEO Michael Intrator told CNBC on Tuesday. Basic Scientific This would be a “nice to have” rather than a necessity, as shareholders prepare to potentially block the deal.

In July, AI cloud provider Coreweave proposed an all-stock deal to acquire Bitcoin miner and data center company Core Scientific, valuing it at around $9 billion. Immediately following the news, Core Scientific’s stock price fell by almost 18%.

The deal has been criticized, with key proxy advisor Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) recommending on Monday that shareholders vote against the acquisition. ISS said Core Scientific’s share price continued to rise after the deal was announced, indicating that some investors thought the company was worth more than what CoreWeave was offering.

Intrator said it was “disappointed” by the ISS report and continued to believe the deal was “in the long-term interest of Core Scientific shareholders.” However, CoreWeave will not increase the price of the offering.

“The offer we made there [Core Scientific] “This is a fair representation of the relative value of the two companies as an all-stock deal,” Intrator told CNBC. For us, owning is not a need, it is a nice thing to have.”

“Everything has a value, and the figure we put forward is the value we are willing to pay for them under any circumstances,” Intrator added.

Earlier this month, Two Seas Capital, a major shareholder of Core Scientific, publicly opposed the acquisition, saying the price offered by CoreWeave was too low. Shareholders will vote on the deal on October 30.

“We see no reason why Core Scientific shareholders should accept such an underwhelming deal. Based on recent trading data, we see little evidence that they will,” Two Seas Capital said in a letter to shareholders on Friday. he said.

CoreWeave has made aggressive acquisitions this year to acquire AI-related companies such as OpenPipe, Weights & Biases, and Monolith as it plans to expand its product offering.

Company that builds and delivers data centers NvidiaFor hyperscalers like Microsoft, beefed-up computing power is driving the wave of AI investments.

“We are in acquisitive mode as we continue to build and expand the functionality of our company,” Intrator said.