Walmart has strengthened its control of Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
It revealed, that in recent days the US retailer paid $1.4 billion to buy out the remaining shares of Flipkart owned by investment firm, Tiger Global, in a transaction that was valued at $35 billion.
The U.S retail powerhouse is looking to benefit from India’s rapidly growing digital economy as its e-commerce boom gains pace. Flipkart, which was founded in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, started out selling books in its early years but has expanded to cover a range of categories such as electronics, fashion, home essentials, groceries, and lifestyle products. It was acquired by Walmart, for $16 billion in May 2018 and reportedly boasts over 8 million shipments per month.
Walmart’s stake was reportedly 77% following the acquisition before more recently dropping to 75%. Meanwhile, Tiger’s first investment in the company was back in 2009 while Flipkart’s current chief executive, Kalyan Krishnamurthy, is a former managing director at the firm. The hedge-fund firm invested nearly $1.2 billion in Flipkart between 2010 and 2015 and has generated $3.5 billion in gains according to an investor letter, the WSJ added
