Walmart buys shares worth $76 million from Binny Bansal

By

Maverick Martins

Published
Jun 25, 2019

​American retailer Walmart has bought Flipkart shares worth $76 million (Rs 527 crore) from co-founder Binny Bansal to further increase its stake in the Indian e-commerce firm. Walmart has transferred the acquired shares to its Luxembourg entity — FIT Holdings SARL.
 

Binny Bansal had departed from Flipkart following allegations of misconduct last year post a Walmart-led investigation.
 
Bansal has been actively investing in start-ups across India and the recent stake sale is expected to deepen his pockets to keep investing in potential firms going forward.

The total shares acquired by Walmart from Binny Bansal were 5,39,912 which is only a portion of the latter’s shareholding in Walmart, according to regulatory filings sourced by business signals platform Paper.vc.
 
The filings indicate that Binny Bansal has monetised a “small portion of his shareholding for what appears to be a cash consideration of $76.4 million,” Paper.vc said based on which Bansal’s holding in Flipkart has gone down from “3.85 per cent to 3.52 per cent.”
 
“During Walmart’s $16 billion acquisition of Flipkart last year for reportedly 77 per cent controlling stake, Binny Bansal had sold his 11,22,433 shares for around $159 million that reduced his stake in Flipkart from “7,476,271 equity shares (before the deal) to 6,353,838 equity shares after the acquisition,” Paper.vc told Financial Express.