Alibaba’s Alipay exits from Zomato

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Chinese major Alibaba group’s investment arm has exited from Zomato on Wednesday. According to bulk deal data on the BSE, Alipay Singapore Holding Pte Ltd, an arm of Alibaba, sold 29.60 crore shares at an average price of ₹112.70. This represents a 3.44 per cent stake in Zomato.

A part of the selling (about 4.40 crore shares) was absorbed by Morgan Stanley Asia (Singapore) Pte Ltd. However, details of other buyers were not known immediately. With this selling, Alipay Singapore has completely exited from the food retail major.

However, Alibaba Group owns 6.39 per cent stake in Zomato through Antfin Singapore Holding Pte. Ltd.

It may be recalled that Japanese conglomerate Softbank, through its affiliate SVF Growth (Singapore) Pvt Ltd, last month had sold 1.09 per cent stake Zomato for ₹1,040 crore through an open market transaction. Earlier, In August too, Softbank offloaded a 1.16 per cent stake in Zomato for ₹947 crore through an open market transaction.

However, shares of Zomato closed 2.55 per cent higehr at ₹116.70 on the BSE.

In a resent research report, domestic brokerage Motilal Oswal Financial said: “We remain positive about the long-term growth opportunity for Zomato and do not expect competition to intensify further despite the entry of ONDC in the space.” It reiterated its Buy rating on Zomato with a target price of ₹135.