Making a commitment to its intent of purchasing rival Snapdeal, Flipkart has signed a binding term sheet. The company will now undertake the commercial and financial diligences within the next few days. And as expected, the term sheet values Snapdeal at somewhere around $1 Billion.
The price is not final however. Flipkart will now go over Snapdeal’s transactions and once it has done so, a final price will be arrived at. The process could take a couple of months and the final price is like to hover in the neighborhood of $1 Billion.
Meanwhile, from Snapdeal’s perspective, the road to an acquisition is pretty much paved. Nexus Venture Partners, which was the main roadblock as it held veto powers over other shareholders, gave its acquiescence to the sale a couple of weeks ago and following that, this latest development was only to be expected.
Meanwhile, Nexus had entered the deal with around $43-$45 million on the table. If Flipkart does buy Snapdeal, Nexus is expected to exit with somewhere around $60 million. Similarly, Kalaari Capital could receive $30 million as compensation for its 8 percent stakes in Snapdeal. Founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal are slated to receive an equal amount from the deal. However, all this is subject to approval from shareholders.
These shareholders includes PremjiInvest, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, eBay, Foxconn Technology Group, Alibaba Group, the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock, Tata Sons Chairman Emeritus Ratan Tata, and hedge funds Tybourne Capital and Myriad Asset Management.
As far as we know, PremjiInvest, which holds around 1.17 percent stakes in the company, has reached out to Snapdeal and sought greater clarity on the nature of the sale and how the interests of the minority shareholders will be represented after the sale. All these minority shareholder who are not directly represented in Snapdeal’s board, hold around 40 percent equity in the company. So, their consent is pivotal for the deal to take place.
