Flipkart IPO: India’s e-commerce major Flipkart, which is owned by US’ Walmart, has raised the valuation of its initial public offering (IPO) internally by a third. As per a report, the new value of Flipkart IPO will be around $60-70 billion. The company also plans its listing in the US markets in 2023, instead of this year, according to sources quoted by the report. The reconsideration of the timeline has more than one reason, the sources said.
As per the report by news agency Reuters, Flipkart, the Indian e-commerce platform that competes with Jeff Bezos’ Amazon in the country with a booming e-commerce space, had earlier set an IPO valuation goal of $50 billion. “The main reason for waiting for the IPO is due to Flipkart’s internal plan to boost valuations further by focussing on two of its relatively new businesses — online healthcare services and travel bookings,” the report said quoting two persons with direct knowledge of the matter.
Other sources familiar with the development also confirmed that the ongoing global volatility triggered by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine also prompted the Indian giant to reconsider its IPO timeline. Flipkart IPO was earlier supposed to open this year.
In 2021, Flipkart had acquired travel booking platform Cleartrip. Last week, the company launched its own health app to provide medicines as well as other healthcare products and services online.
“Flipkart thinks there is an even bigger upside of valuation than originally envisaged … The travel business has started showing great signs already for them,” Reuters quoted the first source as saying. The first source said that the valuation could be as high as $70 billion, while the second source added that the valuation will remain between $60-65 billion. Flipkart did not respond to a request for comment by Reuters.
In an analysts’ conference in December last year, Walmart CFO Brett Biggs said the business of Flipkart in India “performing almost exactly like we thought” and an “IPO is still very much in the cards”. He did not specify when the company would list at the bourses when asked about the possible timeline.
Sources however told Reuters that the listing of Flipkart IPO is now being planned for early-to-mid 2023, and the company — incorporated in Singapore — wants to list in the US markets.
US giant Walmart had acquired around 77 per cent stake in Flipkart in 2018 for about $16 billion. A year later, it said that it could take the e-commerce platform public in four years.
Flipkart had raised $3.6 billion in a funding round, thereby reaching a valuation of $37.6 billion. “That fund raising helped bolster the company’s financial position, and it had enough cash right now for expansion, meaning an IPO wasn’t a necessity at this stage,” one of the sources was quoted as saying. Flipkart IPO has been delayed at a time when the Indian IPO market slowed down after a boom last year.
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