DBT Bureau
Bengaluru, 29 May
Adani Group chairman, Gautam Adani, may be interested in acquiring a stake in Paytm’s parent company One97 Communications, The Times of India reported on Wednesday quoting sources.
Data Biz Times could not independently verify the information.
According to the report, Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma held discussions with Adani at his office in Ahmedabad in this matter.
However, Paytm denied the report terming the report as speculative in an exchange filing. “We hereby clarify that the abovementioned news item is speculative and the company is not engaged in any discussions in this regard,” the company said in an early morning filing.
If the negotiations fructify, it will see the ports-to-airports conglomerate’s entry into the fintech industry. This will also give Adani Group an entry into the growing fintech industry where players like Google Pay, Walmart-owned PhonePe, and Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Financial have significant market share.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma holds around19% stake in One 97 Communications. While he directly owns 9% stake of Paytm and another 10% is held through Resilient Asset Management, a foreign entity. Both Sharma and Resilient are classified as public shareholders according to the company’s exchange filings.
During the fourth quarter, Paytm widened its loss to Rs 550 crore as compared to a loss of Rs 167.5 crore in the same period a year ago.
Its revenue from operations 2.8% to Rs 2,267.1 crore in Q4 as compared to Rs 2,464.6 crore in the corresponding quarter of FY23. For the whole fiscal year-FY24, the company’s loss narrowed to Rs 1,422.4 crore. Paytm had recorded a loss of Rs 1,776.5 crore in FY23.
The company has written off Rs 227.1 crore worth of investment in its associate entity, Paytm Payments Bank Limited (PPBL) during this period after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) barred the entity from accepting deposits, credit transactions or top-ups in any customer accounts, wallets, and FASTags from March 15 onwards.
Paytm shares hit 5% upper circuit at Rs 359.55 in NSE even though the company denied reports of any stake buy by Adani.
