Walmart in talks to invest $25b in Tata's super app

Dubai - The Tata super app may include Flipkart's offerings from Walmart and the entire retail product franchise housed by the Tata Group on one platform

Multinational retail giant Walmart is reportedly in talks with Tata Group for a potential investment in the latter's upcoming retail 'super app' in a deal worth $25 billion, the largest so far in India's bustling retail sector.
Walmart has involved Goldman Sachs as investment banker for the deal and the valuation of the 'super app,' scheduled for debut in December or January, is estimated around $50-60 billion, informed sources were quoted by Indian media as confirming.
The super app could be launched as a joint venture between Tata and Walmart, leveraging on the synergies between Indian salt-to-software conglomerate's e-commerce business and Flipkart, Walmart's e-commerce unit. Flipkart, India's leading ecommerce marketplace, is majority-owned by Walmart through a $16 billion acquisition in 2018.
Analysts said the alliance would be quite strategic for both global giants. Walmart is keen to get a strong brand backing its ecommerce business, while Tata group wants a global name and an established player in the online space to boost sales of products currently sold through Tata group's retail subsidiaries and online platforms to be able to compete against Reliance Industries' Jio Platforms and Amazon.
According to sources, the Tata super app may include Flipkart's offerings from Walmart and the entire retail product franchise housed by the Tata Group on one platform for retail customers. Flipkart could get to be powered by Tata.
The super app will bring together Tata's various consumer businesses under one channel, offering healthcare, food and grocery ordering, insurance and financial services among others including fashion, lifestyle, electronics, over-the-top services, education and bill payments.
Tata Cliq, StarQuik, Tata Sky, and Croma are Tata Group's ecommerce platforms that sell various retail products. The promoter entity of the super app business will have all the retail businesses of Tata Group merged into one channel.
The news of Tata-Walmart alliance comes as Reliance Retail Ventures Limited, a subsidiary of India's largest conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd, started wooing global investors including KKR and Silver Lakes.
While KKR will invest ? 55.5 billion into RRVL, Silver Lakes is investing Rs75 billion, in a deal valuing the retail major at a pre-money equity value of Rs4.21 trillion. The Reliance Group of Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani has already been the cynosure of global investors. Over the past four months, its digital services platform Jio has raised over $20 billion from investors including the UAE wealth funds Mubadala, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Facebook, Alphabet's Google, KKR & Co and Silver Lake Partners by selling stakes in its digital business Jio Platforms.issacjohn@khaleejtimes.com