Tata Sons has acquired a majority stake in online grocery seller BigBasket, putting the Indian conglomerate in a direct race with e-commerce players Amazon.com, Walmart’s Flipkart and Reliance Industries.
The stake was bought by Tata Digital Limited, a unit of Tata Sons. Tata has so far declined to give further details on the deal, while BigBasket did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
India’s antitrust body had in March approved the acquisition of up to a 64.3-per-cent stake in BigBasket by Tata Digital.
Media reports have said the deal is worth about $1.31 billion, and will involve buying out Chinese giant Alibaba’s stake.
The deal comes as e-commerce sales, especially of food and groceries, have accelerated in India as the Covid-19 pandemic spurred a big shift to online shopping.
Tata, which has interests in products spanning from salt to luxury cars to software, has been planning to launch a “super app” that will tie in all its consumer businesses, according to media reports.
- Reporting by Anuron Kumar Mitra in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur, of Reuters.
