Flipkart co-founder sells part stake to Walmart for 531 cr

Bengaluru, June 24 (IANS) Binny Bansal, the co-founder of India's leading e-tailer Flipkart, sold around 54 lakh of his equity shares valued at $76.4 million (Rs 531 crore) to world's retail giant Walmart's Luxembourg entity FIT Holdings SARL, business intelligence platform Paper.vc said on Monday.

"Walmart increased its equity holding in Flipkart by buying 5,39,912 shares of its erstwhile co-founder Binny Bansal for $76.4 million through its Luxembourg-based entity FIT Holdings SARL," said the Chennai-based Paper.vc in an e-mail to IANS.

"According to regulatory filings by Flipkart, Bansal transferred 5,39,912 of his shares to Walmart's entity for a cash consideration of $76.4 million," it added.

Though the other co-founder Sachin Bansal exited Flipkart when Walmart bought controlling stake (77 per cent) in it for a whopping $16 billion on May 9, 2018, Binny stayed on to lead its management team.

"Binny, however, resigned a few months later (November 13, 2018) after an investigation by Walmart into allegations of personal misconduct (sexual harassment) on his part," the Paper.vc statement said.

The latest sell-off, however, is not Binny Bansal's first monetisation of his equity holding in 12-year-old Flipkart.

"Binny's holding fell to 63,53,838 shares post-acquisition from 74,76,271 in pre-acquisition. Our assessment is he sold 11,22,433 shares of his for $159 million when Walmart took over Flipkart," the statement added.

According to Paper.vc's calculations, Binny Bansal's holding has reduced 0.33 per cent to 3.52 per cent from 3.85 per cent after the current sale proceedings.

The financial data platform for private markets has derived the share holding in Walmart from its current Esop pool.

"Our estimates may vary from the authoritative numbers maintained by Walmart/Flipkart," added the statement.