Mumbai: Japanese tech investment giant Softbank will sell a part of its stake in Paytm parent One97 Communications Ltd through a block deal for $200 million, as per deal terms seen by Mint.
Softbank is selling 29 million shares in the secondary offering, representing 4.5% stake in Paytm, around a third of its 12.9% stake in the fintech company.
The shares are being offered to institutional investors in a price range of Rs 555-601.45 per share, a discount of 7.72% at the lower end of the price band, to the closing price of Rs 601.45 apiece of the Paytm stock on Wednesday.
The share sale will fetch Softbank Rs 1,628.9 crore (around $200 million) at the lower end of the price band.
Bank of America is the sole broker to the block deal which will be executed on the exchanges on Thursday.
The block trade from Softbank comes as the one-year mandatory lock-in for pre-IPO investors in Paytm ended on 15 November.
Paytm had listed on the domestic bourses on 15 November 2021, after raising Rs 18,300 crore in its IPO, the second biggest IPO till date in the Indian markets.
However, Paytm's IPO story turned sour pretty quickly as the stock tanked 27% on its market debut from its issue price of Rs 2,150 apiece.
Amid the global technology slowdown that started last year, Paytm stock has continued to remain under its IPO price, closing at Rs 601.45 on Wednesday.
Similar block trades have been seen in other tech companies that went public last year. Investors such as Uber and Tiger Global liquidated part of their holdings in Zomato when its IPO lock-in expired earlier this year. Several block trades have also been seen in Nykaa this week after its pre-IPO shares became freely tradeable last week.
