Japanese internet giant and investor SoftBank has written down the value of its investments in Indian ventures Snapdeal and cab aggregator Ola by $1.4 billion.
“Loss on financial instruments at FVTPL (fair value through profit and loss) was ¥160,419 million ($1.4 billion) compared to a gain of ¥114,377 million ($1.1 billion) in the previous fiscal year,” SoftBank Group Corp (SBG) said in an earnings report for the fiscal ended March 31.
“Highly competitive e-commerce market in India has made a trend of the company’s business performance lower than initially anticipated. This situation caused a material decrease in net asset value of Starfish Pte Ltd (holding company of Snapdeal) and, therefore, SBG impaired the carrying amount of its shares in the company, to the amount equivalent to its net asset value,” it said in its financial report.
SoftBank had earlier this year announces that it has written down $555 million in Snapdeal and Ola for the six months ended September 30, 2016.
Founded by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal in 2011, Snapdeal was one of the early unicorns among the Indian start-ups and was the second-largest e-commerce marketplace in India till about last year.
Tough times Valued at $6 billion mid of last year, the company has been going through very challenging times since the last 8-10 months as it could not raise funds. The company laid off a number of its employees early this year in a bid to cut cost and improve margins.
While the company was able to grow its revenues from ₹76 crore in 2011 to ₹1,457 crore in 2016, its losses widened to ₹2,960 crore in March 2016. Snapdeal’s 2017 financials are yet to be disclosed.
Recently, there were reports of a possible merger between Snapdeal and Flipkart brokered by SoftBank..
Similarly, Ola, which runs the largest network of taxis in the country, is fighting a major battle with Uber.
The company’s losses have widened to ₹2,311 crore in fiscal year 2016. According to its financial report, the losses have grown due to its high marketing and ad spends.