SoftBank’s holding in Paytm down to 2.83% from 13.24% in 10 months

SoftBank has divested its stake worth Rs 580 crore in Paytm. This marks the fifth instance of SoftBank's disposal of its shares in the company in the ongoing fiscal year. Now, the VC’s stake in Paytm has reduced to nearly 3%.

The board at Paytm has approved the disposal of 1,37,84,787 equity shares in a series of disposals between January 23 and February 26, breaching the specified threshold of 2% of SEBI’s takeover regulations.

During this disinvestment, SoftBank disposed of its 2.17% stake which contracted its shareholding from 5.01% to 2.83%, regulatory filing accessed from National Stock Exchange shows.

SoftBank has already disposed of Rs 3,800 crores of worth shares in the current fiscal year ( May, July, December, and January). The disposal sums up to Rs 4,380 crore (as per the share price on the date of transactions).

SoftBank has been on a stake-selling spree in companies that filed IPOs in the past two to three years. It has exited completely from PolicyBazaar while SoftBank’s Singapore entity also divested entirely from Zomato.

Even as SoftBank is grappling with a financial crisis, Paytm is also in the soup over regulatory concerns. 

Earlier this year, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) imposed a set of business restrictions on Paytm Payments Bank over non-compliance and regulatory concerns. The business restrictions are set to impact Paytm’s different business verticals related to the payments bank. 

Since then, Vijay Shekhar Sharma has stepped down from his position as part-time non-executive chairman and board member of Paytm Payments Bank. 

The company also announced that it has reconstituted its board of directors with the appointment of former Central Bank of India chairman Srinivasan Sridhar, retired IAS officer Debendranath Sarangi, former executive director of Bank of Baroda Ashok Kumar Garg, and retired IAS Rajni Sekhri Sibal. 

“…PPBL has informed us that they will commence the process of appointing a new chairman,” Paytm-parent One97 said in a disclosure earlier this week.