China's Ant to exit Paytm in ₹3.8k cr deal
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Ant Group (formerly Ant Financial), one of the early investors of the Noida-based fintech is an affiliate of Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group. After this deal, Paytm will have no Chinese ownership. Ant Group will sell about 3.7 crore shares in Paytm at a floor price of Rs 1,020 per share, a 5.4% discount to Paytm's closing price of Rs 1,078 on the NSE on Monday. Paytm declined to comment.
Ant Group has been paring its exposure to the fintech - it sold a 4% in the company through block deals worth over Rs 2,000 crore in May this year.
In 2023, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma had bought a 10.3% stake in the firm worth $628 million from Ant Group to shore up his stake in the company and cut Chinese ownership. Alibaba had exited Paytm through a block deal in early 2023.
"There's been a trend among Indian companies to reduce Chinese shareholding given the broader national sentiment," said an analyst on condition of anonymity. Sharma holds about a 9% stake in the firm, recent shareholding data showed.
Paytm, which had come under regulatory scrutiny last year following RBI's move to wind down its banking unit due to non-compliance, swung back to profit in the June quarter. Over the past couple of years, SoftBank and Berkshire Hathaway exited Paytm.
"From an investment standpoint, Ant Group perhaps doesn't see the same potential in Paytm compared to its first investment," independent fintech consultant Parijat Garg told TOI.
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