Zomato block deal: SoftBank reportedly sells 1.09% stake worth Rs 1,000 crore
SoftBank, through its affiliate SVF Growth Singapore Pte, is likely to have sold 1.09% equity in Zomato in a bulk deal worth Rs 1,040.5 crore on Friday. Shares of the new-age company were trading 1% higher at Rs 112.70 on BSE.
SoftBank owned a 2.17% stake in the company at the end of the September quarter.
In August this year, SoftBank had offloaded about 1.17% stake in Zomato via a block deal, which was valued at Rs 947 crore.
Prominent investors including Morgan Stanley, Nomura, Kotak Mahindra MF, Invesco MF, Goldman Sachs, Franklin Templeton MF, Avendus, Societe Generale, among others picked up stakes.
SoftBank has been paring its stake in Zomato as the lock-in for the post-Blinkit deal ended in August. As of June end, the Japanese investor, through its affiliate, held a 3.35% stake.
Zomato issued fresh equity shares to all the selling shareholders of Blinkit as consideration for the M&A last year.
Following the transaction, Zomato negotiated a 12-month lock-in for these shares, compared to the statutory lock-in requirement of six months.
A majority of these shares are owned by just three venture capital investors, namely, Softbank, Sequoia, and Tiger Global.
Apart from Zomato, SoftBank, which was among the early investors in India's tech startups, has been reducing stakes in other companies too.
Earlier this month, it offloaded a partial stake in PB Fintech through a Rs 869 crore-block deal. Prior to that in July, it had offloaded about a 2% stake in Paytm.
