Snapdeal Board to seek shareholders view on Flipkart deal

New Delhi, July 26

Snapdeal will seek views of its shareholders, including Ratan Tata and PremjiInvest, on the proposed $900-950 million buyout deal by Flipkart, a source said.

The deal is almost through but there are a few areas of concern and the Board wants to seek views and comments from shareholders on the deal, two people aware of the developments said.

They did not want to be identified as discussions are still on and the deal has not been finalised yet.

SoftBank declined to comment, while Snapdeal did not respond to emailed queries.

Snapdeal's largest investor, SoftBank has been proactively mediating the sale for the past few months.

Snapdeal has a number of investors including Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, PremjiInvest, Ratan Tata, Foxconn, Temasek and BlackRock among others.

Interestingly, PremjiInvest — the personal investment arm of Wipro chairman Azim Premji has already written to Snapdeal seeking greater clarity on the deal terms.

It has also called for equal treatment of shareholders for payouts from the deal.

Reportedly, early investors, Nexus Venture Partners (NVP) and Kalaari — who also have Board representation — could receive payouts worth over USD 150 million once the deal with Flipkart is closed.

One of the sources said the founders, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, are keener on selling the company to listed e-commerce firm, Infibeam or stay independent.

To remain an independent entity, Snapdeal will have to reduce the size of its business, the source added.

While there have been speculations that Infibeam has made an offer of  $700-750 million to buy Snapdeal, the Ahmedabad -based firm has said that these reports are "purely speculative".

The other source said the deal with Flipkart is likely to come through in the next few days.

The Snapdeal Board is now expected to meet next week. As per reports, Flipkart Board will also meet later this week to discuss matters pertaining to the Snapdeal buyout.

Earlier this month, Flipkart had made a revised offer of about $900 million after its first offer of $800-850 million was rejected by the Snapdeal board.

The company had rejected the offer saying it was significantly lower than its $1 billion valuation.

The deal between Snapdeal and Flipkart, if completed, would mark the biggest acquisition in the Indian e-commerce space.

One of the leading contenders in the Indian e-commerce space, Snapdeal has seen its fortunes failing amid strong competition from Amazon and Flipkart.

Compared to a valuation of about $6.5 billion in February 2016, the sale to Flipkart could see Snapdeal being valued at about $1 billion.

SoftBank has already written off over $1 billion on valuation of its investment in Snapdeal. PTI