There's no deal: Snapdeal-Flipkart merger talks just fell apart
Softbank would in all
probability invest in Flipkart and not continue its association with Snapdeal
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NEWS : After five months,
countless man hours of deliberation and numerous board meetings, the biggest
consolidation in the Indian e-commerce history between Snapdeal and Flipkart
has been called off, sources said.
Sources added that Softbank would
in all probability invest in Flipkart on its own and not continue its
association with Snapdeal. The Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal,
as well as early stage investor Nexus Venture Partner and smaller shareholders
such as PremjiInvest, had all along
expressed reservations about the deal.
While Snapdeal board’s resolution
is still to be out, sources said that Softbank, as well as Snapdeal, would come
out with a statement announcing that the deal with Flipkart has been called.
Sources close to the deal said that the board finally agreed that it would be
better for Snapdeal to continue the operations alone.
“After months of deliberation
Snapdeal founders, early stage investor Nexus Venture Partners and Softbank
decided that it was better to not get into a deal with Flipkart,” said a
source.
Snapdeal plans to now go ahead with
it ‘Plan B’ and pivot its company into a Taobao kind of a open marketplace
setup. The company just closed a $60 million deal to sell its online wallet
Freecharge to Axis Bank. With this money as well as the cash it has in bank,
the company hopes to have a running time of at least four years.
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