Alibaba exits India’s Paytm, selling shares for $167 million

Alibaba exits India’s Paytm, selling shares for $167 million: China’s Alibaba Group has sold its remaining stake in Indian digital payments firm Paytm for about 13.78 billion rupees ($167.14 million) through a block deal, stock exchange data showed.

More About The Alibaba Exit:

The exit comes days after Paytm posted its first-ever quarterly operating profit as a listed firm, nine months ahead of its own target. Alibaba.com According to NSE stock exchange records, Singapore E-Commerce Pvt Ltd sold 21.4 million Paytm shares for 642.74 rupees apiece, a 9% discount from Thursday’s closing price. Paytm’s stock tumbled nearly 8%  to close at 650.55 rupees, but it is still up nearly 23% so far this year. It was not immediately clear why Alibaba sold the stake.

In January, Alibaba sold a 3.1% stake in the company through a block deal worth $125 million. Before that, the Chinese firm had a 6.26% stake in Paytm.

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Morgan Stanley’s Fresh Investment in Paytm:

The data revealed that on Friday, Morgan Stanley Asia (Singapore) Pte purchased 5.42 million Paytm shares for 640 rupees. Paytm, which is also backed by China’s Ant Group and Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp 9984.T, has been under pressure to turn profitable ever since its dismal listing in November 2021.

The stock has declined around 70% since listing, and tumbled 60% in 2022. Macquarie Research double-upgraded the stock to “outperform” from “underperform”, and bumped up the price target by around 80% to 800 rupees.