{"id":23016,"date":"2017-07-31T19:38:47","date_gmt":"2017-07-31T14:08:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/?p=23016"},"modified":"2017-07-31T19:40:29","modified_gmt":"2017-07-31T14:10:29","slug":"merger-plans-flipkart-called-off-snapdeal-pursue-independent-path-major-layoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/business-news\/merger-plans-flipkart-called-off-snapdeal-pursue-independent-path-major-layoffs\/","title":{"rendered":"Merger plans with Flipkart called off, Snapdeal to pursue \u2018independent path\u2019 after major layoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Gurgaon-based e-commerce player expects to be financially self-sustainable by selling non-core assets, plans revamped Snapdeal 2.0 strategy<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Days after it had reportedly agreed to a USD 900-950 million buy-out offer from Flipkart, India\u2019s largest e-commerce platform, Gurgaon based e-tailer Snapdeal, on Monday, decided to call off its merger talks and decided to \u201cpursue an independent path\u201d instead.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">An official statement issued by Snapdeal stated that the company \u201chas been exploring strategic options over the last several months\u201d but had now decided to \u201cpursue an independent path and is terminating all strategic discussions as a result,\u201d without naming <a href=\"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/topic\/flipkart\"><strong>Flipkart<\/strong><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Indicating that it had an alternative strategy ready to help itself out of its financial woes, Snapdeal said it expects to be self-sustainable by selling certain non-core assets. Last week, Axis Bank, India&#8217;s seventh-biggest lender by assets announced that it has agreed to buy mobile payments wallet provider FreeCharge from Snapdeal for \u20b9385 crore ($60.04 million).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The company\u2019s confidence for \u2018going it alone\u2019 seems to come from a new roadmap of financial and economic recovery that it is calling Snapdeal 2.0. The statement issued by the e-commerce portal said: \u201cSnapdeal&#8217;s vision has always been to create life-changing experiences for millions of buyers and sellers across India. We have a new and compelling direction &#8211; Snapdeal 2.0 &#8211; that uniquely furthers this vision, and have made significant progress towards the ability to execute this by achieving a gross profit this month.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Japan&#8217;s Softbank, the largest investor in Snapdeal reacted to the development saying it respects the company&#8217;s decision to pursue an independent strategy. &#8220;We look forward to the results of the Snapdeal 2.0 strategy, and to remaining invested in the vibrant Indian e-commerce space,&#8221; a SoftBank spokesperson said. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">However, the road ahead for <a href=\"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/topic\/snapdeal\"><strong>Snapdeal<\/strong><\/a> may not be an easy one to tread on. There are indications that in order to achieve fiscal consolidation and optimization the company could layoff nearly 80 per cent of its work force. News agency ANI claimed in a report that on Snapdeal\u2019s immediate agenda was a plan to \u201ccut down 80 percent of its employee strength\u201d for which various department heads within the organization had reportedly been given \u201cverbal instructions\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Had the Snapdeal-Flipkart deal come through, it would have marked the largest acquisition in the Indian e-commerce landscape. Compared to a peak valuation of about $6.5 billion in February 2016, the talks had valued Snapdeal at about $1 billion earlier this month.<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The Gurgaon-based e-commerce player expects to be financially self-sustainable by selling non-core assets, plans revamped Snapdeal 2.0 strategy Days after it had reportedly agreed to a USD 900-950 million buy-out offer from Flipkart, India\u2019s largest e-commerce platform, Gurgaon based e-tailer Snapdeal, on Monday, decided to call off its merger talks and decided to \u201cpursue an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":23018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1518],"tags":[620,449],"yst_prominent_words":[14604,14609,6681,14600,14595,7864,14607,11509,14605,14606,14603,14608,14597,14596,14601,11559,14599,14598,14602,9411],"ppma_author":[140543],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/d2r2ijn7njrktv.cloudfront.net\/apnlive\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Snapdeal.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":140543,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"apnnewsdesk","display_name":"APN Live","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/478eacb893eda88aa6ed8d99b005bf58?s=96&r=g"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23016"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23016"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=23016"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=23016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- html is corrupted -->