Alibaba Spells Latest Woe For Paytm As Chinese Tech Giant Said To Divest Entire Stake

China’s Alibaba Group has fully exited its shareholding position in digital payments firm Paytm after selling its 3.4% stake in the mobile payments company’s parent entity One97 Communications.

What Happened? Alibaba Group, one of Paytm’s early backers, have sold whatever little stake they had in the fintech firm to bring its shareholding down to zero. Per an ANI report, in a block deal earlier today, the Chinese company sold its 3.4% equity or 2.1 crore shares of One97 Communications.

It is worth noting that at the end of the December quarter, Alibaba had a 6.26% stake in Paytm and had sold around 3% of equity through the open market route in January.

That said, Alibaba Group, which is among the biggest online commerce companies in the world, has been consistently offloading stakes in listed new-age technology companies in India amid a sharp erosion in the value of its investments.

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The Chinese multinational not too long ago offloaded a 3% stake in online food delivery aggregator Zomato.

Paytm’s had a strong week at the bourses, however, Alibaba’s stake sale on Friday dampened its week-long rally which was largely in part due to the company recording operating profitability in its Q3FY23 results with EBITDA before ESOP cost at ₹31 crore.

Paytm’s revenue from operations increased to ₹2,062 crore, a growth of 42% on a yearly basis. It was followed by Paytm’s robust operating update of January 2023 that it filed with the stock exchange on Feb. 8.

Price Action: Paytm tanked a massive 8.75% to close at ₹650.20 on Friday.