SoftBank to sell Flipkart stake to Walmart
- Wednesday, May 23rd, 2018
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Japanese tech giant SoftBank has said that it will sell its 21 per cent stake in Indian eCommerce firm Flipkart to Walmart, following the retailer’s $16bn acquisition of a 77 per cent stake in Flipkart earlier this month.
Walmart’s move to claim a majority stake in Amazon’s Indian rival had left uncertainty over whether SoftBank would hold on to its own significant stake in the eCommerce platform. It is now known that the conglomerate will indeed sell up in the first public divestment by its Vision Fund, the largest private equity fund in the world.
The terms of the deal have not been disclosed but SoftBank’s investment in Flipkart is said to be worth around $4bn. 
SoftBank’s Vision Fund was setup last year, raising over $93bn to invest in the internet of things, AI, robotics, mobile apps, computing, telecoms, and more. The Fund is backed by the likes of Apple, Qualcomm, and Sharp.
Since its birth, the Fund has been used to invest $30bn in startups. Companies invested in include WeWork, Slack, and Uber.
