In another setback for Paytm’s parent One97 Communications, SoftBank has sold another 2 per cent stake in the company. The 2 per cent stake sale yielded close to Rs 950 crore.
One97 Communications is its biggest listed investment in India, over the past month via open market operations.
With the current sale, the Japanese investor’s stake has been pared down to about 5 per cent.
“SVF India Holdings (Cayman) Limited has disposed of an aggregate of 12,706,807 equity shares of One97 Communications Ltd in a series of disposals undertaken between December 19, 2023 and January 20, 2024, with the disposal on January 20, 2024 breaching the 2% threshold specified in Regulations 29(2) of the Sebi Takeover regulations,” SoftBank said in a statement on Wednesday.
However, the domestic retail investors have increased their stake in Paytm to 12.85 per cent sequentially in the third quarter ending December 2023, as against 8.28 per cent a quarter ago.
Also, the portion of domestic institutions, who are likely to have bought out SoftBank’s investors’ stake, also went up to 6.06 per cent from 4.06 per cent.
SoftBank has been steadily diluting its holding in listed Indian startups through public market deals.
Besides Paytm stake sale in tranches since last one year, Softbank’s venture capital fund, SVF Growth (Singapore) Pte Ltd, exited the online food delivery platform Zomato, fetching about Rs 1,125 crore.
In its third quarter results, Paytm reported a 38 per cent YoY increase in revenue to Rs 2,850 crore. The company, which has not posted a net profit since it went public in November 2021, said its consolidated net loss narrowed to Rs 220 crore from Rs 392 crore a year ago.