SoftBank to offload 1.5% stake in Meesho via block deal

Masayoshi Son's SoftBank Group Corp. is offering to sell 70 million shares in Indian e-commerce platform Meesho Ltd through a block deal on Thursday, according to a term sheet reviewed by Mint.

The seller, SoftBank-affiliated SVF II Meerkat (DE) LLC, is offering a 1.5% stake in the Vidit Aatrey-led company, with the floor price for the shares being set at ₹205 rupees per share, representing a 3.1% discount to Meesho's closing price of ₹211.60 on 2 September on the National Stock Exchange.

At the floor price, the total deal is worth about ₹1,435 crore (around $151 million).

BofA Securities India Ltd and J.P. Morgan India Pvt Ltd are serving as placement agents for the transaction. The term sheet specifies a 60-day lock-up period for the seller.

SoftBank's stake sale in the scrip will follow Y Combinator-linked entities selling 48.5 million Meesho shares worth ₹970 crore through block deals on 24 August, and American major Fidelity Investments Co offloading a 1.3% stake worth ₹988 crore in the new-age tech stock on 11 June.

The stock's lock-in for pre-IPO shares expired on 9 June, making nearly 68% of such shares worth about ₹60,000 crore, tradable the very next day, as per JM Financial's estimates.

The Japanese investment major has also sold large blocks in Lenskart Solutions Ltd earlier this year. Its arm sold Lenskart shares worth ₹2,888 crore in August and ₹2,873 crore in June.

The Meesho sale would add to a busy run of secondary-market transactions.

On 27 August, Welspun Corp.'s promoter entity and a top executive collectively sold company shares worth up to ₹1,418 crore. The same day, Ribbit Capital offered up to ₹1,914 crore worth of shares in Groww parent Billionbrains Garage Ventures Ltd. Y Combinator-linked entities also offloaded Groww shares worth over ₹1,400 crore that month.

Other deals in the month included a ₹600 crore block deal by Trudy Holdings, AVP I Fund and Accel in Amagi Media Labs Ltd, representing around 5% of the company's equity, and a nearly ₹200 crore sale by Qualcomm Ventures in Shadowfax Technologies Ltd.

In the week ended 28 August, Paytmfounder Vijay Shekhar Sharma's Resilient Asset Management B.V. also sold a 3% block worth over $300 million in One 97 Communications Ltd, with the economic value of the transaction going to Antfin. Elevation Capital, too, offloaded a partial stake in Paytm on 4 August, cashing in more than $200 million.

Sovereign wealth funds have also been active sellers. Temasek sold a 2% stake in Lenskart for ₹1,940 crore in July after Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund sold a 2.3% stake for a similar amount following SoftBank's sale in June.