Binny Bansal’s Sale of Flipkart Stake to China Firm, Raises Eyebrows

NEW DELHI, (IANS) – Flipkart Co-founder Binny Bansal has sold his stake worth $264 million in the homegrown e-commerce platform to Chinese Internet giant Tencent

The news about Bansal selling Flipkart stock to Tencent came at a time when US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, said that China is hardening its positions along the Indian border.

Addressing the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Austin said that China is taking aggressive and illegal approaches to the territories it claims in the South China Sea.

“Further to the West, we see Beijing continuing to harden the position along the borders it shares with India,” he noted.

Tencent bought Bansal’s stake, via its European subsidiary called Tencent Cloud Europe BV, in October last year, and now holds 0.72 per stake in Walmart-owned Flipkart.

A query sent to Flipkart went unanswered.

India and China have been engaged in a border dispute for nearly two years.

India also banned several Chinese apps and Internet platforms in the aftermath of the tense border standoff in eastern Ladakh in May 2020.

Army Chief General Manoj Pande said last month that China seems to lack the intention to find a resolution to the border dispute at the Line of Actual Control, stressing that Indian troops continue to hold important positions along the LAC.

Sachin and Binny Bansal, who received their B.Tech degree in computer science & engineering from IIT-D in 2005, built one of the largest e-commerce marketplaces in India.

Sachin led Flipkart as its CEO from its inception in 2007 till 2015 and took over as the Executive Chairman in 2016. He is currently leading and mentoring the startup and internet ecosystem in India and is an angel investor in several technology startups.

Binny served as the Chief Operating Officer of Flipkart till January 2016 before being promoted as its Chief Executive Officer. He exited Flipkart in November 2018 and became a prolific angel investor.