Paytm To Sell Stake In Japan's PayPay To SoftBank For Rs 2,300 Crore

Paytm is set to sell its 5.4% stake in Japan's digital payments company PayPay Corp. to investor SoftBank for $280 million or around Rs 2,364 crore.

At a meeting held on Friday, Dec. 6, the board of directors of One97 Communications Singapore Pvt. Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Paytm Singapore, approved the sale of stock acquisition rights in PayPay, the Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led firm said in an exchange filing.

The transaction is expected to be closed in December 2024 subject to the satisfactory completion of all corporate approvals and customary closing conditions.

"We are grateful to Masayoshi-san and the PayPay team for giving us the opportunity to together create a mobile payment revolution in Japan. We remain fully committed and will continue to support PayPay's product and technology innovations in future. We are working on introducing new AI-powered features to accelerate PayPay’s vision in Japan," a Paytm Singapore spokesperson said.

"The sale net proceeds would fortify the consolidated cash reserves of One97 Communications and help drive future business initiatives, focused on maximizing value creation for shareholders," it added.

The divestment by Paytm is part of its strategy to offload non-core assets, and focus on its core businesses, as it reels from the impact of RBI restrictions on its payments bank business.

Paytm had earlier divested its entertainment, sports, and events ticketing business — Insider and TicketNew — to Zomato for Rs 2,048 crore.

On Friday, shares of One97 Communications surged as much as 3.6% to Rs 990.9 apiece on the BSE. It closed 2.02% higher at Rs 975.8 per share, compared to a 0.07% decline in the benchmark Sensex.