Bengaluru
E-tailer Flipkart and PhonePe on 23 December announced the full ownership separation of PhonePe, a digital payments platform.
As part of this transaction, existing Flipkart Singapore and PhonePe Singapore shareholders, led by Walmart, have purchased shares directly in PhonePe India, thus completing a process started earlier this year to make PhonePe a fully India-domiciled company. Walmart would remain the majority shareholder of both business groups, a Flipkart communique said.
Establishing these businesses as individual entities would allow both to chart their own growth paths, as they continue building industry-leading offerings that provide access and inclusion for Indians, Flipkart said.
Setting up these businesses as separate entities would also provide value and create new opportunities for investors to participate in the Indian tech ecosystem – helping unlock and maximize enterprise value for shareholders of the two companies, it further said.
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Sameer Nigam, Founder and CEO at PhonePe, said: “Flipkart and PhonePe are proud, homegrown Indian brands with a user base upwards of 400 million each. We are looking forward to the next phase of our growth as we invest in new businesses – like insurance, wealth management and lending.’‘
Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO of Flipkart Group, said: “The Flipkart Group has developed many successful entrepreneurs and seen impactful businesses started by former employees. We are proud to see PhonePe grow and thrive as a successful organization in its own right. ‘‘
PhonePe Group was acquired by Flipkart Group in 2016. A partial separation of these companies was announced in December 2020.
