In brief
- VivoPower plans to originate up to $300 million in Ripple Labs shares for Lean Ventures.
- The company says the equity stake implies exposure to roughly 450 million XRP at current prices.
- The arrangement offers indirect XRP exposure through equity rather than direct token ownership.
VivoPower International, a publicly listed energy and digital asset treasury company, said Wednesday it plans to originate up to $300 million worth of Ripple Labs shares for South Korea-based investment firm Lean Ventures.
The share deal will proceed under an arrangement the company says would provide indirect exposure to roughly 450 million XRP tokens valued at around $900 million at current prices.
The arrangement was disclosed on Tuesday, though VivoPower’s latest SEC filing on the same day does not reflect those details, and no new filing has been uploaded to the company’s SEC directory at the time of writing.
Decrypt has reached out to VivoPower for comment and will update this article should they respond.
Per the release, the share deal would see VivoPower’s digital asset unit, Vivo Federation, source Ripple equity to be placed into a dedicated investment vehicle managed by Lean Ventures.
VivoPower said it does not plan to deploy significant balance sheet capital as part of the arrangement. Instead, the company would act as an originator and manager for the transaction, generating revenue through fees and performance-based compensation linked to assets under management.
The company added that it is targeting net economic returns of roughly $75 million over three years from the initial $300 million tranche, though those figures are based on internal estimates.
In its disclosure, VivoPower characterizes the Ripple Labs shareholdings as providing exposure to “underlying” XRP, based on Ripple’s existing XRP holdings. The structure does not involve direct ownership of XRP tokens.
Any exposure is derived through equity ownership in Ripple Labs, meaning returns would depend on a combination of Ripple’s corporate performance, its balance sheet composition, and broader market dynamics.
Decrypt has reached out to Ripple Labs for clarification on this point and would update this piece if a response comes in.
VivoPower and XRP
The transaction follows earlier disclosures by VivoPower around other XRP-linked strategies.
In August, the company said it planned to acquire up to $100 million in Ripple Labs shares as part of what it described as an XRP-focused treasury strategy, positioning equity ownership as a way to gain indirect exposure to the token rather than holding XRP directly.
Its stock, VVPR, closed at $2.83 on Wednesday, down by 11.56% from the prior session, marking a sharp single-day decline, per Yahoo Finance data. Trading volume reached approximately 340,600 shares, below the stock’s average daily volume, indicating the sell-off occurred on relatively light participation.
The new share deal comes amid a period of renewed institutional interest in XRP. That shift has followed the resolution of Ripple’s long-running regulatory dispute in the United States and the approval of spot XRP exchange-traded funds, developments that have since reduced legal uncertainty around the asset.
By structuring the arrangement through an investment vehicle aimed at South Korean investors, VivoPower and Lean Ventures appear to be targeting demand for indirect crypto exposure via traditional financial instruments. How such products are presented to investors, and how regulators classify them, could influence whether similar structures are adopted in other jurisdictions.
VivoPower cautioned that the transaction remains subject to negotiations, market conditions, and the availability of Ripple Labs shares.
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