 "As Flipkart faces sixth mark down in valuation, a look at its past dips")
Flipkart continues to be marred with valuation mark-downs, with a recent one being done by US mutual fund managed by Vanguard Investment by 25%. This is the sixth such mark down for e-commerce giant.
The mutual fund marked down the value of its shares to $102.6 as of March 2016, from $136.87 in December 2015. The company’s management cited downcycle in the internet sector as the reason for it. "Overall, these are financial cycles that happen in the whole world. I think the internet sector itself is going through a down cycle, but as the positive cycles don't last forever, the down cycles also don't last forever," said Sachin Bansal, chairman, Flipkart.
Business Standard lists out the previous five mark-downs that the company has seen in as many months.
T Rowe Price
Mutual fund management firm T Rowe Price, in April 2016, slashed its valuation in Flipkart. It fixed the per-share value from $142.26 in the December 2015 quarter to $120.69 in March 2016. Resultantly, the e-commerce firm’s valuation had dipped to $13 billion from its peak of $15.2 billion.
“Public markets look favourably upon sustainable business models. In contrast, private markets look at impact of technologies and try to value the company based on future impact. There is a huge disconnect...the moment of truth for these companies will come when they actually go public," V Balakrishnan, founder and chairman of Exfinity Ventures, a PE fund that invests in technology firms had said.
Morgan Stanley
A minority but key investor in the e-commerce giant, Morgan Stanley marked down its valuation in Flipkart by a whopping 27% in February 2016. As per filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by Morgan Stanley Institutional Fund Trust, it dipped the share’s value to $103.9 in December 2015 from a high of $142.2 in June 2015. "That these valuations were hyper-inflated was known and it was a matter of time before reality struck," Haresh Chawla, partner at India Value Fund, a venture capital firm had then said.
This was followed by another mark down, the second in three months, at 15.5%. With this activity, Flipkart’s total value touched down to $9.4 billion. The Morgan Stanley Institutional Fund has valued Flipkart at $87.9 per share as of March, compared with $103.97 per share in December 2015, it reported in filings to the Securities and Exchanges Commission in the US.
Valic
As of February, Valic marked down Flipkart's value by 29.4%, compared to August 2015, filings by the company with US SEc revealed. The company valued Flipkart's Series D stock at $98 a share, down from $139 a share in August.
Fidelity
A small investor in Flipkart, Fidelity Rutland Square Trust II marked down its valuation in Flipkart by 39.6% as of February, compared to last August. It valued the ecommerce giant's series D stock at $82 a share in February, down from $135.8 a share in August.
