Paytm has reportedly signed a non-binding agreement to acquire rival mobile payments platform Freecharge in an all-cash deal from Snapdeal. This transaction may value Freecharge at $50-90million. Interestingly, Snapdeal paid almost five times this amount i.e $ 450 million for it two years ago.
Presently, Snapdeal is also in advanced talks to sell itself to one of the largest e-commerce sector Flipkart and the sale of Freecharge will ease some of its pressures. Moreover, this news was easily predictable when the Chief Strategy Officer of Snapdeal Jason Kothari was also appointed as the CEO of Freecharge replacing Govind Rajan.
Meanwhile, around the same time, Snapdeal laid off as many as 600 employees and announced themselves a 100 % fee cut.
SoftBank’s board has approved the talks which SoftBank has initiated with Flipkart to acquire Snapdeal’s business at a valuation much lower than one can actually imagine. A spokesperson aware of these developments said: “The funding deal with SoftBank for Paytm does not have Freecharge as a rider, but if Paytm is satisfied with the due diligence it will likely agree to buy Freecharge since the price has come down drastically.”
Backed by Alibaba, Paytm is the largest player in the mobile wallets platform, while Freecharge and MobiKwik too played prominent roles in the same market.
[email-subscribers namefield=”YES” desc=”” group=”Public”]