Flipkart's wholesale arm receives Rs 2,839 Cr from parent entity

Flipkart India Pvt. Ltd., the wholesale arm of the Walmart-owned e-commerce marketplace, has received Rs 2,838.84  crore from its Singapore-based parent entity – Flipkart Private Limited. 

According to regulatory filings with MCA, Flipkart received the sum by allotting 8,15,761 shares to the parent entity. Each share was priced at Rs 34,800.

This is the third round of infusion for the wholesale arm. It had received Rs 3,047 crore across two tranches in January and September this year. Four months ago, Flipkart India Pvt. Ltd. had got Rs 1,616 crore from the same entity.

Flipkart’s B2B arm purchases goods in bulk from manufacturers and then resells it to related or controlled merchants for sale via its website. Companies like SuperCom Net, OmniTech Retail, Retail Net including some recently created intermediaries which will buy from Flipkart’s B2B entity and sell to above sellers are companies like Sports Lifestyle Private Limited, Premium Lifestyle and Fashion India Pvt Ltd and Wishberry Online Services Pvt Ltd.

Although Flipkart claims to be a marketplace, it bought goods worth Rs 39,514 crore during FY19, which is more than 90% of India’s five leading retailers - D’Mart, Future Group, Aditya Birla Fashion & Retail, Shoppers Stop and Trent - put together.

It’s worth noting that the fresh infusion of funds has come when Flipkart is holding its last sale of the season- Big Shopping Days. It received Rs 1,616 crore in September before its biggest sale - Big Billion Days. The company is likely to ramp up inventory for preferred sellers selling on the consumer-facing platform.

Besides pumping money into the company, Walmart has also bought former co-founder Binny Bansal’s share worth Rs 545-550 crore. Bansal offloaded 5,39,312 equity shares of Flipkart’s Singapore based holding entity to Walmart. Following the transaction, his share in the company has come down to 3.3%.