Walmart closing in on Flipkart deal

Earlier this month, we reported that Walmart was looking to buy a 15% to 20% stake in Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart. It now appears that the US retailer is in talks to purchase a stake of more than 40%.

According to Reuters, in what would be one of its biggest overseas deals, Walmart is looking at buying new and existing shares in Flipkart and due diligence is likely to begin as early as next week. The retailer has held intermittent talks with the Amazon rival over the past two years. The two inked a non-disclosure pact in 2016 that was renewed in 2017.

Last year, Japan’s SoftBank Group invested nearly $2.5 billion in Flipkart through both primary and secondary investments. Flipkart also pulled in $1.4 billion from Tencent, eBay and Microsoft.