Walmart may take a longer time to acquire Flipkart

Walmart's acquisition of Flipkart may take a longer time to complete. The retail giant has pushed the earlier deadline of acquiring the Bengaluru-based e-commerce major for further three months.

Earlier on March 9, 2019, a deadline was set by both companies for the share purchase agreement. The development comes after the US-based company's announcement of selling $16 billion of bonds to help finance their Flipkart acquisition.

Walmart had reportedly offered both fixed rate bonds and floating rate notes to finance the deal.

According to a Walmart spokesperson, the company is confident of close the biggest acquisition in the e-commerce history of India by this year, however, the new deadline in the 8-K filing on June 21, 2018, is related specifically to the bonds recently issued.

The deal, which is currently under the consideration of Competition Commission of India (CCI) has been facing protest from various representing bodies such as CAIT, AIOVA, and Swadeshi Jagran Manch.

The aforementioned bodies have been alleging that Walmart-Flipkart deal is against the spirit of e-commerce industry of India and it will create a monopoly in the market which will further affect merchants' business.

While CAIT and AIOVA filed petitions in the court against the acquisition, the right-wing lobby group had approached the commerce minister to review the deal.

The silver lining for these representing bodies came in June when the commerce minister clarified that all the complaint against violation of FDI norms has been forwarded to responsible agencies such as Enforcement Directorate and RBI.

However, CAIT maintained its threat for a pan India protest against the deal. Today, the traders association which represents over 70 million merchants is going to raise its voice against the US-based company in 500 cities of India. This will be one of the biggest protests by any representing body in e-commerce industry of the country.

About 10 lakh traders are expected to take part in the protest. Swadeshi Jagran Manch and others associations may take part in the same.

The development was reported by ET.