Ant Group, SoftBank Plan To Offload Paytm Shares Through Secondary Sale: Report

Even though both Paytm's management including its founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma are seen to be opposed to a strategic investor coming on board the company, a secondary sale to financial investors in the open market through a block deal is still a possibility, as per the report.

Written by: Sankunni K

Updated: February 27, 2023, 8:25 AM IST

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https://www.india.com/business/ant-group-softbank-plan-to-offload-paytm-shares-through-secondary-sale-report-5918088/ Copy

Ant Group, SoftBank Plan To Offload Paytm Shares Through Secondary Sale: Report

New Delhi: Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank and Alibaba’s Ant Group are, two of the earliest and largest investors in One 97 Communications, which operates the Indian fintech platform Paytm, have discussed selling shares in the company through a secondary stock deal, as per an ET report quoting sources.

The report said that telecom major Airtel’s parent company Bharti Enterprises’  and another Indian conglomerate were in talks with these shareholders and investment banks representing them to buy their stakes. As per a Bloomberg report that was out last week, Bharti Enterprises’ CEO Sunil Mittal was looking to merge Airtel Payments Bank into Paytm Payments Bank. However, these talks didn’t make much headway and Bharti is not currently engaged in conversations on this issue, the ET report added.

Even though both Paytm’s management including its founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma are seen to be opposed to a strategic investor coming on board the company, a secondary sale to financial investors in the open market through a block deal is still a possibility, as per the report.

Earlier this month, Alibaba, the company that owns Ant Group, exited One 97 Communications Ltd after selling its final 3.4 per cent stake in the Indian fintech major in a block transaction worth over Rs 1,300 crore. As per the ET report, both Ant and SoftBank are likely to offload shares gradually in the market as part of their plan to exit Paytm.

Ant Group still remains the single-largest shareholder in One 97 Communications Ltd with about 25 per cent stake. While SoftBank owns are 13 per cent stake, the venture capital firm Elevation Capital owns around 15 per cent and Elevation Capital owns around 15 per cent. Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the founder and CEO of One 97 Communications owns around 14 per cent in the company. The aforementioned shareholding pattern may change as the company executed a share buyback on 13 February 2023 where it bought back shares worth Rs 849.83 crore from investors at an average price of Rs 545.93.