The new offer comes within days of rival Infibeam's likely interest in Snapdeal.
Flipkart has revised its initial buyout offer to Snapdeal two weeks after the Gurgaon-based online marketplace rejected it on accounts of undervaluation. Flipkart has reportedly extended a fresh $850 million offer to Snapdeal. Another report pegged the new offer at $900 million. Whatever the value, it is significantly higher than its initial offer of $550 million, and will cover Snapdeal’s marketplace, its logistics arm (Vulcan Express), and online order management business (Unicommerce eSolutions).
The new offer has been approved by the Flipkart board, and officially communicated to Jasper Infotech that owns Snapdeal. Interestingly, its digital wallet business FreeCharge is not a part of the deal, and will have separate bidders. Earlier reports had suggested that Paytm could be one of them. Paytm is 20 percent owned by Softbank, which had originally triggered the Flipkart-Snapdeal buyout talks. It makes business sense for Paytm and FreeCharge to merge. ALSO READ: Flipkart reportedly buying eBay India operations
Incidentally, Flipkart’s revised offer seems to have come right after Infibeam — India’s only publicly listed e-commerce company — reportedly expressed keenness in Snapdeal. It had even valued the latter at $1 billion, and made an offer to Jasper Infotech, Bloomberg reported. However, Flipkart is most likely to get Snapdeal, and has already completed due diligence on the company. ALSO READ: Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl, Rohit Bansal’s letter to employees all but confirms sale speculations
Flipkart’s new offer shall hopefully please its minority investors that include heavyweights PremjiInvest (the personal investment arm of Wipro’s Azim Premji), Ratan Tata and BlackRock (asset manager) who had been ticked off by the $550 million valuation. In February 2016, when Snapdeal raised $200 million from a Canada-based venture fund, it had been valued at $6.5 billion. Hence, whatever Flipkart offers the struggling marketplace is a significant downgrade.