The purpose of the move is to regain its status of a private limited company in Singapore ahead of investment by Walmart
Flipkart on Thursday bought back shares of some of its shareholders for USD 350 million, according to data sourced by business intelligence firm Paper.vc.
Investors who exited include names like Shekhar Kirani, Deep Nishar, IDG Ventures besides a large number of pension funds.
Tiger Global, Accel, Microsoft, Naspers and Ebay continue to remain on the cap table of Flipkart. The purpose of the move is to regain its status of a private limited company in Singapore ahead of investment by Walmart.
According to Paper.vc, Flipkart till now had around 150 stakeholders. As per the rules, Flipkart was required to drop its number of shareholders to below 50 to regain its status of a private limited company in Singapore.
The company is in final stages of talks with Walmart for an acquisition, even as reports of Amazon preparing a counter offer is doing the rounds.
The deal is expected to have Walmart buying a controlling stake of around 55 per cent in the Bengaluru-based company for a valuation of around USD 20 billion.
Flipkart last raised around USD 2.5 billion in August. The round saw the entry of Japan’s Softbank as an investor in the company. Flipkart had then announced that it had cash in excess of USD 4 billion on its balance sheet.
While it is being speculated that Walmart may retain the top management of the company after the acquisition goes through, it is also being said that the two founders — Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal — are looking to sell their entire stake in the company.
