In what seems like the second round in the battle to acquire Flipkart, Walmart is becoming a frontrunner in the buyout game against Amazon.com
Flipkart is showing keenness to sell to Walmart, rather than Amazon because of the greater certainty in the deal according to anonymous sources. Flipkart has been valued at dollar 20 billion and both Amazon and Walmart are competing to take a controlling stake in the Indian e-commerce major.
According to a Flipkart board discussion, Flipkart felt that Walmart will be easy to deal with and could close the deal more smoothly and quickly as compared to Amazon. While Amazon is already the second largest e-commerce player in the country, Walmart no longer has any retail presence and thus would face fewer regulatory hurdles.
The Founders of Flipkart Sachin and Binny Bansal also want the deal with Walmart as its expertise would greatly benefit the marketing and positioning of the company.
Although Flipkart is tilting towards Walmart, the deal is far from over as SoftBank which is Flipkart’s largest shareholder may prefer Amazon over Walmart because of its expertise of cracking over the e-commerce business, a source said.
Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder has committed dollar 5.5 billion for Amazon.in and its country chief has already made progress by adapting the site to the Indian tastes and the Indian market.
All the three parties involved, Walmart, Amazon and Flipkart refused to comment.
Flipkart is already the most valuable startup in the country and a dollar 20 billion price tag would be much higher than its valuation of dollar 12 billion as of last year.
SoftBank and Tiger are the successful startup’s biggest stakeholders and are followed with Naspers Ltd from South Africa.
The deal if it is finalized and actually goes through will be the biggest in the history of the countries E-commerce industry.
ALSO READ – JET AIRWAYS REFUSES TO BUY AIR INDIA
