SoftBank in talks with Tatas, Mahindra for stake buy in subsidiary: Misra

Japanese investor SoftBank Investment Advisers is in talks with Tatas and Mahindras for a stake buy in one of their subsidiaries, a top official said on Friday.

The talks have been on for the last six months and both the conglomerates represent an interesting opportunity to invest, courtesy strong brand presence and an offline sales network, Rajeev Misra, the chief executive for the investor, said at the ET Global Business Summit.

“…we are speaking to a couple of conglomerates, Tata (and) Mahindra,” Misra said while replying to a question if the investor would look at taking a bet on one of the conglomerate-promoted businesses like Tata Digital.

SoftBank has billions of dollars invested across the world and its domestic bets include payments focused Paytm and other unicorns.

As per an August 2021 report, Tatas were looking to raise up to USD 5 billion as they go about building a ‘super app’ which will help it compete with the likes of Amazon and Reliance Industries’ Jio Platforms.

Misra further said one of the key aspects for a conglomerate to be successful is nimbleness of the business vertical, less bureaucracy and independence of the management team.

Quick decision making is essential in new age businesses and bureaucracy may not work, he said, pointing out that many big companies have failed in their attempts to incubate businesses.

Speaking on Paytm’s bombed initial public offering, Misra said SoftBank was the second largest investor in the company after the Chinese Alibaba Group and the pricing was set by the company’s board and the bankers.

From a value of USD 20 billion, the stock’s market capitalisation is now down to USD 8-9 billion and the same has to go up, he said.

He, however, added that other tech-enabled, consumer facing companies like Lenskart and Policybazaar have better businesses for capital market debuts.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

We, however, have a request.

As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.

Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.

Digital Editor