By MIAO Yiwei
Alibaba has sold all of its remaining stakes in Indian digital payment firm Paytm. The deal brought in about 13.8 billion rupees (US$170 million, 1.1 billion yuan), the Bombay Stock Exchange data showed on Friday.
Alibaba liquidated a 3.1 percent stake in Paytm in January a block deal worth US$125 million, roughly half of the tech giant’s holding. Last week, Macquarie Research double-upgraded the stock to “outperform” from “underperform,” and bumped up the target price by around 80 percent.
Paytm is an India-based fintech company, that specializes in digital payments and financial services. It is a leading digital payment platform in India. With a large user base and widespread acceptance among merchants, the company offers a range of services including mobile recharges, utility bill payments, travel bookings, and online shopping.
Founded in 2010 by Vijay Shekhar Sharma as One97 Communications, the company’s IPO in 2021 raised over US.5 billion, making it the largest IPO in India. Paytm has been under pressure to turn a profit ever since. The stock has declined around 70 percent since listing and tumbled 60 percent in 2022.
Alibaba’s exit comes just after Paytm posted its first-ever quarterly profit.
But while Alibaba might be getting out of India, Ant Group, the fintech affiliate of Alibaba that owns Alipay, the world’s largest mobile payment platform, still owns 25 percent of Paytm. Ant Group started investing in Paytm in 2015.
From 2014 to 2020, Alibaba invested in at least nine Indian tech companies. But in 2021, the company sold most of its interests in Indian e-commerce platform BigBasket to Tata Group.
Last year, Alibaba exited the largest Indian e-commerce company Paytm Mall. It also sold 3 percent of its stakes in Indian listed takeout business Zomato in November.
