A Business Deal: Walmart to Purchase SoftBank’s Flipkart Stake

Today, SoftBank Group Corp. has announced that it will sell the entire Flipkart India’s stake to the American multinational retail firm Walmart. Earlier this month, Walmart has revealed its intentions to take control over the Indian eCommerce giant’s stake and make the move for $ 16 billion. The CEO of SoftBank, Masayoshi Son had wavered on whether to sell his Vision Fund’s 21% stake to Walmart as part of the deal.

“This investment in the Indian firm was worth around $4 billion and the Vision Fund invested 2.5 billion in Flipkart in August last year,” said Masayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank. 

By this decision, SoftBank will look forward to investing in other different firms in India. According to reports, Mr. Son is ready to invest in digital payment platform, Paytm to compete with other eCommerce companies like Amazon. In addition, last year SoftBank’s Vision Fund has invested $1.4 billion in Paytm’s parent company, One97 Communications. Since then the company has also invested few $ 110 million partnered with Alibaba Group in the Paytm E-commerce site. According to Alibaba corp., the Japanese multinational firm was an early investor in the company and also, the two companies share many ties.

Sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, along with companies such as Apple Inc., Qualcomm Technologies Inc., and Foxconn Technology is managed by Vision Fund.