Hogan Lovells and Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas have advised U.S. retailer Walmart on its agreement to pay $16 billion for a roughly 77 percent stake in Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart, which turned to Khaitan & Co. for advice.
According to the Reuters, this is Walmart’s largest-ever deal as it looks to compete with Amazon.com in an important growth market. Amazon holds about 27 percent of India’s burgeoning e-commerce market, according to Euromonitor, where Walmart only operates 21 cash-and-carry wholesale stores in the country that sell to businesses.
Reuters added that Walmart said it remains in talks with other potential investors to join the funding round. This could lower its stake although Walmart plans to retain majority control. Previously, Reuters had reported Google-parent Alphabet may buy a roughly 15 percent stake in Flipkart for $3 billion.
The remainder will be held by existing shareholders, including Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal, China’s Tencent Holdings, Tiger Global Management and Microsoft Corp, said Reuters.
The Hogan Lovells team was led by Silicon Valley M&A partner Rick Climan, and also included partners Stephanie Keen (managing partner of the Singapore office) and Chris Moore (Silicon Valley). Erica Chan, the Hong Kong-based Asia GC for Walmart, oversaw the deal for the company.
The SAM team was led managing partner Pallavi Shroff, while the M&A aspect was led by Raghubir Menon, with the support of partners Ekta Gupta, Puja Sondhi, Natashaa Shroff, Abhishek Guha, Aayush Kapoor and Siddharth Nair. Partners Shilpa Mankar Ahluwalia and Shubhangi Garg advised on fintech, Shweta Shroff Chopra advised on competition law, and Amit Singhania and Mukul Baveja advised on tax and IP, respectively.
The Khaitan team was led by partner Ganesh Prasad, who was assisted by partner Vijay Joy. CAM competition partner Bharat Budholia is expected to advise Flipkart in the future on competition law filings and related matters.
Additionally, Trilegal, led by partner Yogesh Singh and competition head and partner Nisha Kaur Uberoi, advised Naspers Limited on sale of its 11.18 percent stake to Walmart.
Two other companies sold their stake in Flipkart as part of the deal. Argus Partners’ senior partner Siddharth Raja advised TR Capital on its Flipkart exit, while J Sagar Associates’ (JSA) Bangalore-based partners Vivek Chandy and Archana Tewary advised eBay.
