Anil Ambani led Reliance Capital has sold its stake in India’s leading mobile payment platform Paytm for Rs 275 crore to Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba group. Reliance Capital had invested Rs 10 crore for .83% equity in Paytm which it has now sold to One97 Communications, the owner and operator of Paytm, for a whopping Rs 275 crore.
The development comes at a time when Alibaba and SAIF Partners have pumped in $200 million for Paytm’s newly created commerce entity Paytm E-commerce.
However, the asset management company had got an additional stake in Paytm Mall free of cost by virtue of its investments in the parent firm. Earlier in December, One97 Communications’ founder and Paytm’s Chief Executive Officer Vijay Shekhar Sharma had sold 1% from his stake in the parent company for about Rs 325 crore, valuing it at about Rs 32,500 crore ($4.8 billion). This money was to be pumped into the group’s payments bank operations, which are slated to commence soon.
At present, Jack Ma-owned Alibaba, the largest e-tailer in the world, and affiliate Ant Financial are the largest shareholders of One97 Communications, the parent company of Paytm. Paytm’s founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma owns about 21 percent in the company.
