SoftBank's Paytm stake falls to under 1% from 18% in IPO

MUMBAI: SoftBank has cut its stake in Paytm to under 1%, the fintech said in an exchange filing on Friday.

The Masayoshi Son-led Japanese investment giant, which had infused over $1 billion into Paytm and held about 18% stake in the firm at the time of its IPO in 2021, has been trimming its shareholding in the company through a series of open market transactions. SoftBank held about 1.4% stake in Paytm at the end of March.

Following the reduction in SoftBank's stake, total FDI shareholding in the company declined by 2% to 37.7%. Paytm said that it has seen an increase in the shareholding of domestic investors including mutual funds and retail shareholders in the June quarter. "Shareholding of retail investors went up to 16.5% from 15.3% sequentially while mutual funds increased their stake to 6.8% in Q1 FY25 from 6.1% in Q4 FY24, led by Mirae Mutual Fund and Nippon India Mutual Fund. As a result, domestic institutional investors witnessed an increase in stake by 0.29% from 6.86% to 7.15%, signalling confidence in the company's growth prospects," Paytm said.

Paytm has come under regulatory scrutiny after RBI found compliance lapses at its banking unit and slapped severe restrictions on the entity. The company revealed wider losses of Rs 550.5 crore in Q4 FY24, saying that it expects the full impact of RBI's action on the business to play out in the first quarter of FY25. The share price of Patym ended at Rs 467 apiece on the BSE on Friday, down 2.4%.