Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal likely to quit company board: Report

Flipkart’s co-founder and chairman Sachin Bansal may quit the company board as Walmart is inching close to sealing the deal with the e-commerce company, as per a report in the Times of India.

The TOI report said that Walmart will retaining only one of the two founders, the other being Binny Bansal. Quoting sources, TOI said that Walmart in all probability will pick up all the shares of Sachin Bansal.

Walmart will also retain Kalyan Krishnamurthy, who took over as the CEO of Flipkart in January last year.

US-based retail behemoth Walmart, is eyeing a majority or controlling equity stake in it to foray into the multi-billion dollar Indian retail space. Walmart wants to buy a majority stake in Flipkart for as much as USD 12 billion, even though rival Amazon is still jostling to turn the deal in its favour.

Amazon is believed to have offered Flipkart a higher valuation of about USD 22 billion, along with a break up fee of USD 2 billion, compared to Walmart's USD 18-20 billion valuation of the Bengaluru-based company.

Flipkart on Thursday bought back $350 million worth of shares from its investors as it seeks to convert its Singapore-incorporated company to a private limited firm, in a move that could ease the way in for a new strategic investor.

Flipkart Ltd purchased shares for $350.5 million from some of its investors including Shekhar Kirani of Accel, SoftBank executive Deep Nishar`s family trust, IDG Ventures and a host of pension funds, according to May 3 regulatory filings from Singapore`s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority, sourced by business intelligence platform paper.vc.

It also began the process of converting Flipkart to a private limited company, changing its name to Flipkart Pte Ltd, the filings showed.

With Reuters Inputs