India’s top online marketplace Flipkart reportedly boosted its takeover offer for rival Snapdeal by as much as $200 million to between $900 million and $950 million.
Flipkart’s revised offer is only for Snapdeal’s marketplace and its e-commerce unit Unicommerce, and doesn’t include its payments arm Freecharge or its logistics business Vulcan, both of which are being sold separately, Reuters reported.
In early July Snapdeal turned down Flipkart’s first offer of $700 million to $750 million, which a number of sources said was a lowball initial offer made after it completed due diligence.
Snapdeal, which is operated by Jasper Infotech, had a peak valuation of $6.5 billion in February 2016, but the figure since plummeted to an estimated $1 billion as competition in what is one of the world’s most fiercely contested e-commerce markets intensified and funding became harder to line up.
The e-commerce companies have been negotiating a final deal since early May, when SoftBank brokered a preliminary takeover agreement with Snapdeal’s founders and early investor Nexus.
Snapdeal in 2014 received an investment of $627 million from SoftBank, which went on to invest nearly $2 billion in the Indian e-commerce startup, making it one of the Japanese company’s largest investments in India.
Infibeam, a listed e-commerce player, also made an undisclosed offer for Snapdeal, sources told Reuters.
Snapdeal is reportedly considering both offers.
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