FLIPKART A BARGAIN BUY FOR WALMART: BINNY BANSAL

BENGALURU:Months after Walmart forked out $16 billion to buy 77% of Flipkart, the Indian e-commerce firm’s group chief executive Binny Bansal said the world’s largest retailer had made a bargain buy.

In an interview with San Francisco-based news website Recode on Tuesday, Bansal refuted a claim made earlier that Walmart overpaid for Flipkart and insisted that the US-based retail giant had, in fact, made a long-term bet on India that would pay off over the next five to ten years.

“Absolutely,” Bansal said, when asked if Walmart had underpaid for Flipkart. “That’ll be very clear 5-10 years down the line.” In August, Walmart closed its $16-billion buyout of Flipkart, days after receiving the green light from India’s anti-trust watchdog, the Competition Commission of India.

Prior to Walmart’s buyout, which valued the Flipkart Group at $21 billion, Flipkart was valued at about $12 billion in a 2017 fundraise from SoftBank, Tencent, Microsoft and eBay.

Bansal said further that Flipkart was Walmart’s only viable acquisition target in India.

“It all came about pretty well for both sides eventually...For Walmart, it made sense to partner with Flipkart. Flipkart was the only option (for Walmart) to make a play in India. The future of retail, especially in a country like India, is e-commerce. And the way to make a play in e-commerce was either to build it or to work with Flipkart,” he said. Bansal also indicated that Flipkart would continue to push aggressively for an IPO over the next few years.