In a bid to reduce its shareholding in e-commerce platform, FirstCry, Japanese firm, SoftBank, has reportedly sold its stake to three Indian business family groups, reported Economic Times. As per the report, the investment firm has reduced its stake in FirstCry by about 1.5-2%.
FirstCry will go public by next year. SoftBank Vision Fund’s Managing Partner and CFO Navneet Govil said that FirstCry is expected to file its draft papers by the end of 2023, reported ET.
A week ago, the business website had reported that Manipal Group’s Chairman Ranjan Pai is in advanced stages of talks to acquire a stake in the e commerce pltform exclusively for kids and babies. He is expected to invest around ₹250 crore in FirsCry. Besides, FirstCry, Manipal’s Ranjan Pai is also mulling over to buy stake in PharmEasy and ByJu’s Akash Institute.
Other than SoftBank, FirstCry has also received investment from Premji Invest (with 9-11%), Mahindra Retail(12-13%) and TPG(6-7%).
Other than Manipal Group’s Chairman Ranjan Pai, SoftBank is also expected to sell its stake to other two Indian entities. The Japanese firm is striving to send its stake at a valuation of $3 billion. The funding is reportedly to be primed as a pre-IPO round for the e-commerce firm. After the sale, around $100 million worth of secondary share is expected to be formalised, sources told ET. With the deal, SoftBank is planning to sell a part of its 29% holdings in the company.
According to ET sources, the discussions of selling stake to other firms has been going on for past few months. But the deal is yet to be finalised. In the secondary share sale, Middle Eastern sovereign and pensions funds are also expected to come on board.