China's Antfin, part of Jack Ma-founded Ant Group and an affiliate of Alibaba Group, has trimmed its stake in Zomato Ltd after shares of the Indian food delivery company touched record highs.
Antfin sold a total of 176.4 million shares in Zomato, or about a 2% stake, via bulk deals for about Rs 2,827 crore, or almost $341 million.
Morgan Stanley was among the buyers, purchasing 56.8 million shares for Rs 909.55 crore, stock-exchange data showed.
Shares of Zomato fell 2.7% to close at Rs 161.60 apiece on the BSE. The shares touched a record high of Rs 175.50 apiece on Monday, soaring from a one-year low of Rs 49 apiece in March 2023.
Antfin held a 6.42% stake in Zomato at the end of December 2023. In November 2023, the company pocketed Rs 3,336 crore, or around $400 million, by offloading a 3.44% stake in Zomato. That sale came nearly a year after it sold Zomato shares worth Rs 1,631 crore, or around $200 million, back then.
Ant Group invested in Zomato via two entities. One entity held a 16.5% stake and was the second-largest shareholder of Zomato ahead of its IPO two years ago. This entity fully exited last year. It had invested Rs 1,354 crore in 2018 (around $200 million then) and encashed Rs 6,233 crore across three tranches, or nearly 5x of the original investment.
Ant's other entity had bought shares worth Rs 1,892 crore across two tranches in 2018 and 2020. This entity trimmed its stake on Wednesday.
Apart from Ant Group, other investors who have sold Zomato shares in the recent past include Japan’s SoftBank Group and US-based investment firm Tiger Global.
