In a recent development the board of the ecommerce firm Flipkart, approved to sell 75% equity stake to a group of investors led by Walmart Inc., for $15 billion, Bloomberg reported. SoftBank will sell its 20+ per cent stake as a part of the deal, the report said. Google’s parent Alphabet Inc., is also likely to participate in the investment with Walmart. Reports also suggest the deal would be finalised in the next 10 days, although terms of the deal could still change.
The week noticed some surprising headlines about CEOs quitting the firms. From Jan Koum to Sachin Bansal, they seem to be taking extremely crucial decisions lately. Shortly after the Flipkart and the Walmart deal dominated the news, sources revealed Sachin Bansal, the online retail giant’s co founder, may exit the firm. This impending deal seems to play a vital role in his exit. Sachin may look to startup another venture again and also mentor other entrepreneurs. Even as the details are emerging, Walmart said it wants the duo, Binny Bansal and Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy, who have been actively running the daily operations, as more critical members, to stay back, the sources revealed.
Earlier, reports confirmed while CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy would continue to head Flipkart, one among its founders, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal may exit. “Sachin is most likely to leave and Binny will stay.” Email sent to Flipkart and Sachin Bansal did not elicit a response at the time of filing this article. “I won’t be able to comment on anything related to this,” said Sachin Bansal in a text message.
Currently Sachin Bansal holds 5.5 % of shares in the company. If the deal with Walmart happens at a valuation of $20 billion his share would be worth over $1 billion. Flipkart buys back shares worth $ 350 million from its investors. The investors include DST Global, IDG Ventures and ICONIQ Capital. The online giant intends to sell a majority stake to the U.S., wholesale giant Walmart Inc.
Walmart Inc., is in advanced talks with Flipkart to acquire a dominant stake of more than 51 percent in the firm. All of it at a price of at least $18 billion, as sources reported to Reuters. The Walmart-Flipkart negotiations have been reported in the popular media for several months now. The company also began the procedure of modifying itself in to a private limited company, changing its name to Flipkart Pte., Ltd., the filings showed. Furthermore, this is the second such transaction during the past 12 months.
In the latest instance, a number of minority Flipkart shareholders have been handed complete exits. In August 2017, most of Flipkart’s minority shareholders gave away a portion of their stakes to SoftBank. Moving ahead, Accel Partners has clocked $113.5 Million through partial exits from Flipkart. Beside SoftBank and Accel Partners, IDG Ventures and Helion Ventures have gained excellent returns on their investment in the online giant. Other famous investors like Microsoft, Tencent and eBay have also invested in Flipkart last year.
As of now, Tiger Global and SoftBank Group are the largest shareholders in Flipkart, each holding about 20% stake, and Naspers at about 13%. Sachin and Binny Bansal hold about 5% each in the company.
