Ant Group, the Chinese fintech giant backed by Alibaba, is reportedly set to completely exit its investment in India’s Paytm by selling its remaining 5.84% stake. The shares will be sold via a block deal with a floor price of ₹1,020 per share, reports Reuters, citing a term sheet. The total transaction is expected to raise about ₹3,800 crore (~ $433 million). The sale will be handled by investment banks Goldman Sachs India Securities and Citigroup Global Markets India.
This is the last step in Ant Group’s slow exit from Paytm, a company it strongly supported during the early growth of digital payments in India. Earlier this year (in May 2025), Ant had offloaded 4% of its stake, around 25.5 million shares at ₹823.10 per share, raising over $246 million. That sale, also executed via a block trade, had a floor price of ₹809.75. The process was managed by the same two investment banks. Even before that, in August 2023, Ant transferred a 10.3% stake to Paytm CEO and Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma.
Ant’s complete exit from Paytm is part of a larger pattern of Chinese investors pulling back from India’s technology sector over the past few years. For example, in February 2023, Alibaba Group completely sold its remaining shares in Paytm. At that time, the company sold its remaining 3.4% holding (over 21 million shares) through a block deal worth around ₹1,378 crore (~ $167 million). Actually, regulatory tightening in India regarding foreign investments (mainly from China) and geopolitical tensions between the two countries have made such exits more likely. The Indian government has also increased scrutiny of Chinese investment in sensitive sectors like fintech, data, and digital infrastructure.
This exit by Ant Group also follows the actions of other major global investors who have reduced or fully exited their stakes in the Indian fintech giant. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway sold its entire 2.46% stake in November 2023, offloading about 15.6 million shares for around ₹1,371 crore. Similarly, Japan’s SoftBank exited Paytm during the June quarter of 2024, selling its remaining stake and reportedly incurring a loss of about $150 million.
The timing of this move becomes significant as it comes just after Paytm reported its first core business profit of ₹123 crore in Q1 FY26, without relying on one-time gains. This marks a major turnaround from a loss of ₹840 crore in the same quarter last year. The profit was driven by a 28% jump in revenue and an 18.5% drop in overall expenses. Despite such performance, Paytm continues to face major legal and regulatory challenges, including a ₹611 crore FEMA notice from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) over alleged violations of rules and a SEBI investigation into ESOP misallocations involving founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma.
