Morrison & Foerster has advised Japanese telecom and media group SoftBank Corp on its $627 million investment in Indian online marketplace Snapdeal.
The Snapdeal purchase comes as international investors hunt deals in online retail in India, which has the world’s third-largest Internet user base but where e-commerce is still relatively underdeveloped.
SoftBank didn’t disclose how big a stake it will have in Snapdeal. But the company did say it will become the biggest investor in Snapdeal, where sales of everything from clothes to computers have brought in around 25 million registered users and 50,000-plus merchants, attracting international shareholders like e-commerce operator eBay Inc and investment firm BlackRock Inc.
The Morrison & Foerster team that advised SoftBank was led by the firm’s Tokyo managing partner, Ken Siegel, and corporate partner Randy Laxer.
Kochhar & Co advised the Japanese company on Indian law, while IndusLaw represented Snapdeal.
With this round of investment, Snapdeal, co-founded by Bahl and Rohit Bansal four years ago, has raised about $1 billion this calendar year. The company said it plans to use the money to ramp up technology and supply chain management systems, and add order fulfilment centres to 30 cities. The company currently has 40 fulfilment centres in 15 cities.
