Ola Receives CCI-Approval To Acquire Additional 6.75% Stake In Parent Entity

Founders of cab aggregator Ola -Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati- along with MacRitchie Investments has received final approval from the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to acquire an additional 6.75% stake in its parent entity, ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

MacRitchie Investments is an indirectly wholly-owned subsidiary of Singapore-based investment company Temasek Holdings.

Ola will acquire a stake from a few existing investors through Singapore-based Lazarus Holdings, a special purpose vehicle which will be used as an investment holding company.

Ola had applied to CCI in September this year.

The selling shareholders include some employees of Ola besides angel investor Rehan Yar Khan and venture capital (VC) investors who received shares in Ola after its acquisition of TaxiForSure in 2015.

This also includes investors such as VC firms Accel India, Bessemer Venture Partners, Helion Venture Partners, and TaxiForSure founders Aprameya Radhakrishna and Raghunandan G, who are making a partial exit from Ola.

Aggarwal and Bhati strengthened their rights last year by amending Ola’s AoA (article of association) to enable them to veto any further stake purchases by the company’s largest shareholder — Japanese holding conglomerate SoftBank — and also to protect their stake.

The company had already received the backing of Temasek Holdings, which has agreed to vote with them as part of a recently structured secondary subscription of shares.

Recently, reports surfaced that Temasek has purchased a large single-digit stake in the company for around $225 Mn. The stake was bought from a group of early investors in the company. Temasek is also in discussions with Ola’s management to pump in more money into the company by way of subscription to new shares.

Other major shareholders in Ola include venture capital firm Matrix Partners India with an 8.6% stake and Chinese Internet conglomerate Tencent with 10.4%.

Reports revealed that DST Global, along with its affiliate Apoletto, holds an over 8% stake in Ola and has already given its shareholding right in the company and board seat to the founders, like it typically does across the world.