Virendra Pandit
Mumbai: Tata Sons’ unit Tata Digital Ltd has acquired a majority stake in online grocery seller BigBasket, putting the top Indian conglomerate in a direct race with e-commerce players like Amazon.com Inc., Walmart-controlled Flipkart, and India’s indigenous player, Reliance Industries Ltd.
According to media reports, the antitrust body Competition Commission of India (CCI) had, in March this year, approved BigBasket’s acquisition of up to a 64.3% stake by Tata Digital.
The deal is worth about USD 1.31 billion (Rs.9,489 crore), and includes buying out Chinese giant Alibaba’s stake, reports said.
It came at a time when e-commerce sales, especially of food and groceries, have exponentially increased in India as the Covid-19 pandemic spurred a big shift to online shopping.
The Tatas, which had interests in products spanning from salt to luxury cars to software, had been planning to launch a “super app” that will tie in all its consumer businesses, reports added.
The Group’s arm Trent Hypermarket Ltd owns a retail chain under the Star Bazaar brand.
