Alibaba exits Paytm, sells remaining stake

Final month, Alibaba offered 3.1% of its stake in India’s Paytm in a block deal. Now, the Chinese language tech firm has absolutely exited the fintech main and offered the whole thing of its inventory in Paytm, in line with media stories.

Whereas Alibaba and Paytm shunned commenting on the matter, stories reveal that the Chinese language big absolutely exited the Indian digital funds agency after it offered its total stake of three.4% fairness in Paytm. The block deal occurred on Friday, sending the recovering shares of Paytm again right into a tumble. Paytm inventory fell by as a lot as 9.3% to ₹640, though it later recovered slightly to cross the ₹650 mark. On the time of writing this text, Paytm’s shares clocked a web fall of seven.82% to be at the moment priced at ₹650.75. Paytm’s shares had, in current occasions, dropped by round 70% from its IPO subject worth of ₹2,150. The final 5 days noticed a gentle reversal of its fortunes as its shares rose by practically 19%, however the sale of Alibaba’s direct stake in Paytm despatched shares falling as soon as once more.

In keeping with Refinitiv (which was later included in a Reuters report), over 22.8 million shares of Paytm, or about 3.5% of the corporate’s complete share capital, modified palms in 15 blocks at a worth between ₹655-690.25 as of 10:54 AM IST. Earlier than Alibaba offered a stake of three.1% in Paytm by way of the block deal price $125 million final month, it had a complete stake of 6.26% within the firm. Apart from Alibaba, its group agency Ant Monetary continues to have a stake of practically 25% in Paytm.

This improvement, whereas being an disagreeable one for Paytm, doesn’t come as a giant shock. Latest occasions have seen Alibaba slowly however steadily make an exit from the Indian market because it continued to promote its stakes in its investments in Indian enterprises. The explanation for a similar is an easy one – the exits got here amidst a steep drop within the worth of its investments. Final yr, the Chinese language tech main offered a stake of three% in meals aggregator Zomato (which clocked a development of 75% in income for the winter quarter and a widening of its web loss for a similar interval).

Paytm, for the ultimate quarter of the earlier yr, noticed its web loss slim to ₹392 crores, whereas its income from operations jumped by 42% to succeed in ₹2062.2 crores for a similar interval.