Tata Group In Advanced Talks To Buy 80 Per Cent Stake In Online Grocer BigBasket For $1.3 Billion

In a major development, N Chandrasekharan led Tata Group and India's largest online grocery store BigBasket have entered advanced talks stage for the former's acquisition of around 80 per cent stake in the latter at a price tag of around $1.3 billion, reports Livemint.

The deal, if materialised, it would see BigBasket being valued at whopping $1.6 billion. The negotiations for the same have been ongoing for about five months, and the two parties have now agreed on the deal structure. The final deal is likely to be announced in the next few weeks.

The deal would see Tata Group buy 50-60 per cent stake held with BigBasket's existing set of investors which include Chinese behemoth Alibaba among others. Alibaba, which owns about 29 per cent stake in the company is likely to sell all of it to Tata Group.

Other than this, Tata Group will also buy 20-30 per cent of fresh shares from BigBasket, leading to significant fund infusion for the player.

The development gains significance as it would give the BigBasket founders the financial backing of Tata Group to take on biggies like Reliance Industries Limited, Amazon, Flipkart and several other emerging players which have been vying to increase their penetration in the hotly contested market segment.