Big investors head for exit in PhonePe’s $1.5-billion IPO
Walmart to trim its holding while Microsoft and Tiger Global sell out entirely in what could be India’s biggest IPO since October
New Delhi
Walmart will trim its stake in PhonePe by about 12 per cent, while other backers such as Microsoft and Tiger Global will offload all their holdings in the digital payments company's IPO, touted as India's biggest since October. Bengaluru-based PhonePe plans to sell 5.07 crore shares, entirely by existing shareholders, with no additional capital, according to an updated draft prospectus filed to the market regulator.
The offering may raise up to USD 1.5 billion, valuing the company at about USD 15 billion. This will be the biggest initial public offering (IPO) since Tata Capital's USD 1.7 billion share sale in October. PhonePe, which competes with Google Pay and Paytm, aims to list by mid-2026. Walmart, which holds 71.77 per cent in PhonePe through its entity WM Digital Commerce Holdings, plans to sell as many as 4.59 crore shares, representing about 9 per cent of the company. Smaller shareholders,
Tiger Global and Microsoft, are fully exiting their stakes, according to the updated draft red herring prospectus. Tiger Global, which first invested in PhonePe in 2021 after Walmart carved out the payments business from Flipkart India as a separate entity, will sell 10.39 lakh shares. Microsoft Global Finance plans to offload 36.78 lakh shares. PhonePe had 65.76 crore registered users and Rs 5,340 crore in transactions. It offers payment solutions to over 4.7 crore merchants. It posted a loss of Rs 1,444 crore on a revenue of Rs 3,919 crore in the six months ended September 30, 2025.
The total shares to be offloaded through the OFS are valued at around Rs 10,115.87 crore based on the weighted-average cost of acquisition per equity share. Kotak Mahindra Capital, Goldman Sachs, Axis Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Citi, JM Financial Services Ltd, Morgan Stanley, and Jefferies Financial Group are among the book-running lead managers for ?the offering. The Walmart group firm had last raised Rs 7,021 crore (around USD 850 million) at a pre-money valuation of USD 12 billion (about Rs 1 lakh crore) from investors like General Atlantic, Walmart, Ribbit Capital, TVS Capital Funds, and Tiger Global in the financial year 2022-23.
