Japan's SoftBank Group has further reduced its stake in payments firm Paytm to 2.83% from 5.01%, an exchange filing showed on Thursday.
The
conglomerate, which held 17.5% stake in Paytm in September 2022, has trimmed its ownership for more than a year
through multiple open market deals, with its most recent cut being in January.
SoftBank on January 24 announced that it had pared yet another 2% stake in
fintech major One 97 Communications, which runs the payments platform Paytm,
to bring down its shareholding in the company to about 5%.
The
Japanese investor has been gradually reducing stake in Paytm as it reportedly
has plans to exit the company completely.
While some global
investors like Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and China's Alibaba Group
exited the firm in 2023, others, including a Netherlands-based unit of Chinese
fintech firm Ant Financial cut their stake.
SoftBank sold a majority of its stake in Paytm before regulatory scrutiny
caused the fintech firm’s shares to dive, Bloomberg reported earlier
this month, citing the Vision Fund’s executive managing partner.
One
97 Communications Ltd, recently saw its founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma stepping down as part-time non-executive chairman and board member at
associate entity Paytm Payments Bank Ltd (PPBL). The parent also withdrew all
nominees from the payments bank’s board.
The troubled PPBL,
on which restrictions were imposed by the central bank due to compliance
issues on January 31, has brought new faces to the table.
PPBL’s
reconstituted board now includes former Central Bank of India chairman Srinivasan Sridhar, retired IAS officers Debendranath Sarangi
and Rajni Sekhri Sibal, as well as former executive director of Bank of Baroda Ashok Kumar Garg.
Shares of One 97 Communications fell 5% to the day's low of Rs 385.90 on Thursday, witnessing their third successive decline and
losses extending to 10%.