Alibaba exits India, sells its entire stake holding in Paytm

NEW DELHI: In a block deal, 3.4 per cent equity ( or2.1 crore shares) of Paytm's parent company One97 Communications Ltd (OCL) have changed hands on Friday.

Sources in the know of the development say that Chinese multinational Alibaba has sold its entire stake in Paytm in today's block deal.

With this sale, Alibaba is no longer a stakeholder in Paytm. The company had sold around 3.1 per cent of 6.26 per cent equity in Paytm in January.

This latest deal almost completes Alibaba's exit from India since it had earlier sold its stakes in Zomato and BigBasket. The news will bring cheer to the market as it ends the Chinese stake holding in the homegrown Paytm.

Paytm's shares have been rallying in the last few days since it announced operating profitability in its Q3FY23 results with EBITDA before ESOP cost at Rs 31 crore, significantly ahead of its guidance of September 2023.

The fintech giant revenue from operations increased to Rs 2,062 crore (no UPI incentive recorded this quarter), a growth of 42 per cent on a yearly basis. This was followed by Paytm's robust operating update of January 2023 that it filed with the stock exchange on February 8.

The company has continued to witness sustained growth momentum in its key payments and lending business. Paytm strengthened its leadership in offline payments with the deployment of 6.1 million devices while its average MTU at 89 million registered a 29 per cent growth for the month of January 2023.