Walmart might announce acquisition of Indian e-commerce giant tomorrow

• Sachin Bansal, Flipkart’s Founder, is expected to sell all his shares.
• Walmart will get 60% of the acquisition.
  
• The remaining 15% will go to Alphabet, Google’s parent company.

One of the largest acquisitions involving an Indian company might be finalised as soon as tomorrow. American multinational retail corporation Walmart has been in the process of acquiring Flipkart, India’s second largest e-commerce portal, for a while and it seems the deal may finally be made official tomorrow.

Reports last week indicated that Flipkart’s board approved the deal for Walmart to acquire 75% of the company. Keep in mind that Walmart isn’t alone in this venture. While the company will get around 60% stake in Flipkart, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, will get the other 15%. Overall, this is expected to be a $3 billion dollar expense between the two.

Walmart is expected to get three seats on Flipkart’s board of directors. The company will also have a say in the how Flipkart handles it’s financial and legal matters, a source told NDTV.

Winds of change

Sachin Bansal, Flipkart’s founder, is set to leave the company altogether. As per reports, Flipkart’s co-founder will sell his 5.5% stake in the company to Walmart, resulting in around $1 billion. Sources revealed to Times of India, that Bansal “wasn’t aligned with the strategy and operating structure that was being proposed post Walmart coming on board.”

This isn’t entirely new information since rumours of his departure have been circling for a while. After Walmart’s acquisition comes through, Binny Bansal will stay on as the group CEO and also be given the title of executive chairman. Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Flipkart’s current CEO, will also stay with the company but won’t have a seat on the board.

Sachin Bansal won’t be the only one leaving. SoftBank, currently Flipkart’s largest investor, is rumoured to want to back out as well, that too completely. Even Tiger Global and Accel, two other investors, maybe looking to sell a majority of their stakes.