After Paytm & PB Fintech, SoftBank To Offload Delhivery Shares Worth INR 600 Cr

Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank is reportedly mulling selling its stake worth about INR 600 Cr in logistics startup Delhivery via block deals.

The Japanese tech conglomerate, which has been slowing down its India investments over the last few years and is trying to offload stake in Indian startups, is expected to sell Delhivery shares via block deals on March 1, CNBC Awaaz reported.

SoftBank holds a stake in Delhivery via its investment arm SVF Doorbell (Cayman) Ltd and was the biggest shareholder in the company as of December 2022 with 18.42% stake, or 13.4 Cr shares. 

SoftBank is likely to sell the shares at a discount of 3%-5% to the current market price, the report said citing sources. 

Delhivery shares ended Tuesday’s trading at INR 344.15, down 0.5% on the BSE.

Last week, Delhivery’s another pre-IPO shareholder, Tiger Global’s Internet Fund III, offloaded 1.2 Cr shares in a bulk deal worth INR 414.2 Cr.

Tiger Global held a 4.68% stake in Delhivery as of December 31, 2022.

The latest development comes at a time when SoftBank is trying to exit many of the Indian startups in its portfolio due to their widening losses. The losses of listed as well as unlisted Indian startups have been hitting the bottom line of SoftBank hard for many quarters now.

In November last year, Softbank sold 4.5% of its stake in Paytm in a deal worth about $200 Mn. As per a latest report, the company is now planning to sell more shares in Paytm via a secondary share sale.

Softbank also sold over 5% stake in PB Fintech via block deals in December 2022.

However, it must be noted that SoftBank has seen good returns from Delhivery. It had invested $300 Mn in the logistics unicorn and saw earnings of $200 Mn from the company, as per SoftBank.

The VC firm is perhaps looking to take advantage of the rise in share prices of Delhivery over the last month or so. The logistics startup’s shares have surged over 14% in the last one month.

Delhivery reported a consolidated net loss of INR 195.6 Cr in Q3, a 54.6% rise on a year-on-year basis but a 23% decline on a sequential basis.

Brokerage JM Financial recently initiated coverage on Delhivery and said it expected the company to hold on to its market share in the express parcel segment.

On Tuesday, Delhivery also announced grant of 23,095 stock options under its Employees Stock Option Plan 2012 (ESOP 2012) to eligible employees, with effect from March 01, 2023. The ESOPs have a face value of INR 1 apiece.