Salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Group has signed a deal to acquire a 68 per cent stake in bigbasket, an online supermarket backed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, for nearly ₹9,500 crore.
The stake is being acquired through Tata Digital, a subsidiary of Tata Sons, which was set up for the conglomerate’s foray into the tech sector. While the deal would help Tatas compete with retail giants such as Reliance Retail, Flipkart and Amazon, it would also mark the exit of Alibaba from bigbasket.
“The deal was signed recently. This was a large deal, and there were a lot of complexities involved, and was time consuming. The intention of the parties was to close the deal by December,” a source close to the negotiations said, without specifying the exact date of signing the deal.
Enterprise value
The deal was inked at an enterprise value of ₹13,500 crore. The Tata Group was looking to acquire a minimum of 51 per cent stake but was willing to go up to 80 per cent, depending on the price and was open to investing up to $1.5 billion in bigbasket.
On December 4, 2020, BusinessLine had reported that Tatas were in the final stages of discussions to acquire bigbasket.
When contacted, the Tata group declined to comment.
Hitherto, Chinese billionaire Jack Ma-controlled Alibaba held a 29 per cent stake in the company. The other key investors include Abraaj Group, Ascent Capital, Helion Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Mirae Asset-Naver Asia.
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