Goldman Sachs Ups Stake In CarTrade To 7.19%

SUMMARY

Goldman Sachs, along with its associated entities, acquired an additional 9.78 Lakh shares of CarTrade via open market transactions

This comes a week after private equity (PE) firm Warburg Pincus exited CarTrade by offloading over 40.76 Lakh shares or divesting the entire 8.64% in CarTrade

In June, Highdell Investment Limited and Macritchie Investment Private Limited also sold around 40.65 Lakh shares and 20.32 Lakh shares of CarTrade, respectively

Goldman Sachs Asset Management has increased its stake in online classifieds and auto auction platform CarTrade to 7.19% from 5.15% at the end of the June quarter.

Goldman Sachs, along with its associated entities, acquired an additional 9.78 Lakh shares of CarTrade via open market transactions, it said in an exchange filing.

This comes a week after private equity (PE) firm Warburg Pincus exited CarTrade by offloading over 40.76 Lakh shares or divesting the entire 8.64% in CarTrade.

In June, Highdell Investment Limited and Macritchie Investment Private Limited also sold around 40.65 Lakh shares and 20.32 Lakh shares of CarTrade, respectively.

In the same month, Temasek, JP Morgan and Warburg Pincus cumulatively offloaded 64.57 Lakh shares of CarTrade via separate bulk deals.

Founded in 2009 by Vinay Sanghi and Rajan Mehra, CarTrade sells new and old vehicles. It counts brands like OLX India, CarWale, BikeWale, CarTradeExchange, Shriram Automall, Adroit Auto, and Autobiz under its umbrella and sells technology solutions for OEMs and dealers.

It competes with the likes of CarDekho, Droom, CARS24, among others, in the growing online automotive classifieds market in India.

This comes at the heart of CarTrade looking to incentivise and retain its talent through its latest ESOP offerings. It expanded its employee stock option plan (ESOP) pool by allocating 50,000 stock options in August.

In July, it allotted 28,000 and 1 Lakh stock options. Before that in April, the company set aside an additional 3.04 Lakh equity shares under its ESOP schemes.

On the financial front, CarTrade reported a 69.4% increase in its consolidated net profit to INR 22.89 Cr in the first quarter (Q1) of the financial year 2024-25 (FY25) from INR 13.51 Cr in the year-ago period. Revenue from operations jumped 64% to INR 141.17 Cr in Q1 FY25 from INR 86.06 Cr in the corresponding quarter last year.

Shares of CarTrade ended Friday’s trading session 2.76% lower at INR 907.75 on the BSE.

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