Walmart starts to buy shares from FK’s current, former staff

NEWDELHI/BENGALURU:Festive celebrations are set to begin early at Flipkart, with its new owner Walmart Inc. starting the process of buying back shares from current and former employees of India’s largest e-commerce company.

US-based Walmart, which acquired Flipkart for $16 billion in May, will purchase the shares at $126-128 apiece, according to several employees who were informed of the offer through emails from the management of Flipkart.

Mint has reviewed the contents of the email.

As part of the employee stock option (ESOP) buyback plan, former employees will be able to cash out only 30% of their shares. They will have to hold on to the remainder of their holdings for an undisclosed period, the email showed.

Current employees can, however, cash out half of their stock holdings immediately, and a quarter a year later.

The remainder can be sold back to Walmart two years after the first liquidation. While current employees received the missive from the company earlier during the week, a number of former employees received the email on Tuesday.

Walmart has set September 28 as the deadline for completing the buyback process. A back-of-theenvelope calculation shows that

the shares will be bought back at a valuation of $21 billion—similar to which Walmart acquired the 77% stake in Flipkart.

Flipkart’s employees have gained previously as well from share buybacks. In the past six years, there have been at least five other buybacks in Flipkart, including a $100 million repurchase last year.