Parent Walmart paid $3.5 billion to acquire stake in Flipkart from non-controlling stakeholders, including co-founder Binny Bansal, the US retailer said in a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.
As reported by Moneycontrol in August, along with Bansal, Accel, one of Flipkart’s early investors, and US-based Tiger Global Management have fully exited the Indian e-commerce player by selling their stake to Walmart. Along with them, Franklin Templeton and several other early investors in the e-commerce company also sold their shares to Walmart.
A Walmart spokesperson confirmed the development in August and said the company had acquired an additional stake in Flipkart from some investors, including Tiger Global, but did not share more names.
“During the six months ending July 31, 2023, the company paid $3.5 billion to acquire shares from certain Flipkart non-controlling interest holders and to settle liabilities of former non-controlling interest holders of PhonePe,” Walmart said in its filing.
In 2018, global retail giant Walmart bought 77 percent of Flipkart for $16 billion. Walmart now owns a little more than 80 percent, according to data available on Tracxn, a private market data provider, while its stake has fallen to about 75 percent.
“Additionally, over the six months ended July 31, 2023, the Company received $0.7 billion with a new round of equity funding for the Company’s majority-owned PhonePe subsidiary,” the filing added.
Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal netted nearly $1 billion by selling his entire stake to Walmart in 2018, while Binny Bansal retained a small stake in Flipkart.
