SoftBank looking to sell stake in Zomato via block deal: Report

Japanese tech giant SoftBank is likely to offload Zomato shares soon as the lock-in for the post-Blinkit deal ends today, according to CNBC-TV18.

On the exchanges on Friday, about 51 lakh shares of Zomato changed hands in a block, taking the stock over 2% lower.

Zomato issued fresh equity shares to all the selling shareholders of Blinkit as consideration for the M&A last year. Following the transaction, Zomato had negotiated a 12-month lock-in for these shares, compared to the statutory lock-in requirement of six months.


A majority of these shares are owned by just three venture capital investors, namely, Softbank, Tiger Global and Sequioa.

An analysis of JM Financial suggested that pre-IPO and ex-Blinkit shareholders of Zomato are currently sitting on substantial gains on their investments, a large chunk of which is, however, unrealised.

"Given the quantum of these gains and basis past actions of these VC/PE/Chinese shareholders in the listed internet names that recently went public, we believe it is fair to say that a sizeable proportion of Zomato’s stock could be available for trade in large blocks in a not-so-distant future," the brokerage had said earlier.