Flipkart Investors Could Force Walmart to Take Company Public
- Investors owning less than 14% of Flipkart could require IPO
- IPO may happen in 4 years at valuation of nearly $21 billion
Workers sort packages at a Flipkart office in Bengaluru, India.
Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg
Walmart Inc., the world’s largest retailer, could be forced to publicly list its newly acquired Indian e-commerce company, Flipkart Group, within four years at the request of a small minority of Flipkart shareholders, a public filing shows.
Walmart’s $16 billion purchase this week of India’s biggest online seller gave the Arkansas-based retailer a 77 percent stake in Flipkart and a foothold in a country with 1.3 billion people and one of the world’s fastest growing economies. That the purchase for India’s most valuable startup gave Walmart a leg up over its chief rival, Amazon.com Inc., which has been investing heavily in India, only sweetened the deal.