'Binny Bansal sells Flipkart shares worth Rs 530 cr to Walmart'

Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal has sold his shares worth over USD 76 million (about Rs 530 crore) in the Indian e-commerce major to US retail giant Walmart.

Bansal transferred more than 5.39 lakh of his Flipkart shares to Walmart's Luxembourg-based entity -- FIT Holdings SARL, according to business intelligence platform Paper.vc.

"Our data, derived from Flipkart's filings, indicate that with this transfer, Binny Bansal has monetised a small portion of his shareholding for what appears to be a cash consideration of USD 76.4 million," it added.

The current sale is estimated to have reduced Bansal's holding from 3.85 percent to 3.52 percent.

Walmart Inc, in May last year, had announced that it is buying 77 percent stake in Flipkart for about USD 16 billion (Rs 1.05 lakh crore), it's biggest deal that gave the US retailer access to Indian e-commerce market that is estimated to grow to USD 200 billion within a decade.

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Reaction from Binny Bansal could not be ascertained. Binny, who had co-founded Flipkart with Sachin Bansal (not related) in 2007, had sold a small portion of his minority holding during the Walmart deal. According to Paper.vc, Binny Bansal had sold shares for about USD 159 million during the Walmart takeover. Sachin Bansal had sold his entire stake.

After the deal, Binny Bansal continued to lead Flipkart as Group CEO and co-founder till November last year, when he resigned following a probe into an alleged "serious personal misconduct".

Binny had strongly denied the allegation and the independent investigation done on behalf of Flipkart and Walmart "did not find evidence to corroborate the complainant's assertions against Binny".

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Flipkart's service competes primarily with Amazon's Indian subsidiary and the domestic rival Snapdeal as of March 2017, Flipkart held a 39.5% market share of India's e-commerce industry. It is significantly dominant in the sale of apparel (a position that was bolstered by its acquisitions of Myntra and Jabong.com) and was described as being "neck and neck" with Amazon in the sale of electronics and mobile phones Flipkart also owns PhonePe, a mobile payments service based on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).