Representational image (Pic - Getty Images)
Alibaba, which owns about 13 percent stake in restaurant aggregator and food delivery unicorn Zomato through two of its subsidiaries, will sell shares worth $200 million through a block deal on November 30, CNBC Awaaz said on November 29.
Ant Financial and Alipay would bring down their stake in Zomato to about 10 percent, the report said quoting sources.
The block deal is said to happen at a discount of about 5-6 percent, the report said. Investment bank Morgan Stanley would be the broker to the deal.
Alibaba’s partial exit comes at a time when Zomato has seen a series of senior-level exits recently. The company has also initiated layoffs as it plans to shrink the workforce by 4 percent.
Zomato’s share price has fallen over 55 percent this year, even as the company witnessed sharp revenue growth in recent quarters.
Alibaba has become the latest investor to sell Zomato shares in bulk since the lock-in period of one year for around 613 crore shares, or 78 percent of the company's stock, ended July 23.
In August, some of the biggest shareholders, including Sequoia Capital India, Tiger Global Management, Uber and Delivery Hero, pared their stakes either through block deals or open market operations.
In the last week of August, Zomato said in a stock exchange filing that Sequoia Captial brought its stake down to 4.4 percent from over 6.41 percent by selling 6.7 crore shares between September 6, 2021 and October 14, 2021 and 10.5 crore shares between June 27, 2022 and August 25, 2022 through its two investment vehicles—Sequoia Capital India Growth Investment Holdings I and SCI Growth Investments II.
Delivery Hero, which held about a 1.6 percent stake in the food delivery unicorn, sold its entire stake in the open market in July valued at $60 million.
In the same month, Tiger Global effectively sold 18 crore shares. Cab aggregator Uber also offloaded its entire 7.78 percent stake in the Gurugram-based firm, marking its exit from the Indian food delivery giant.
New York-based venture capital firm Moore Strategic Ventures had sold its entire stake of 4.25 crore shares at Rs 44 apiece via a block deal in July, booking a loss of Rs 4 crore.
Zomato closed 1.63 percent down at Rs 63.35 on the National Stock Exchange.
Checkout Budget Highlights 2023
