Zomato shares jump 4% amid block deal buzz; Alipay Singapore Holding likely seller

Shares of Zomato rose nearly 4% in opening trade on Wednesday amid strong volume, with 29.8 crore shares changing hands over the counter in the first half an hour of trade so far. While the buyers and sellers were not known immediately, it was reported that Alipay Singapore Holding, an arm of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba’s affiliate Ant Group, was looking to sell its entire 3.44% stake in online food delivery company via block deal today. The floor price for the deal was fixed at ₹111.28 per share, a discount of 1.7% to Tuesday’s closing price, which would fetch ₹3,290 crore to the Chinese payments group.

Ant Group’s another entity Antfin Singapore Holding owns 6.39% stake in Zomato as of September 30, 2023.

Amid block deal buzz, Zomato shares opened 2% higher at ₹116.15 against the previous closing price of ₹113.80 on the BSE. In the early trade so far, the largecap stock gained 3.7% to ₹118, while the market capitalisation crossed ₹1 lakh crore.

Zomato has witnessed stake selling by foreign institutional investors after the one-year lock-in period for investors who bought shares in the company's initial public offering (IPO) ended in July last year. Last month, SoftBank offloaded 1.1% equity in food-tech firm to raise ₹1,040 crore, while Internet Fund III, a venture capital fund managed by Tiger Global, and Apoletto Asia, a fund backed by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, partially trimmed their stake in the company in August this year.

The shares of Zomato have turned multi-bagger in the calendar year 2023, with their share price zooming 184% in the last ten months, from its 52-week low of ₹44.35 on January 25, 2023, to touch its fresh 52-week high of ₹126.10 apiece levels on November 7, 2023. In the last one year, the counter jumped 84%, while it added 74% in six months and 8.5% in a month.

The recent rally in Zomato shares can be attributed to improvement in its profitability as well as expansion in food delivery and Blinkit businesses. Post September quarter results, analysts turned bullish on the stock, expecting the online food delivery platform to see a rise in orders and restaurant partnerships during the ICC World Cup as well as the festive season. 

For Q2 FY24, the Deepinder Goyal-led firm posted a consolidated net profit of ₹36 crore in Q2FY24, compared with a profit of ₹2 crore in the June quarter of FY24 and a loss of ₹251 crore in the corresponding quarter last year. The consolidated revenue from operation surged 71.46% year-on-year (YoY) to ₹2,848 crore compared with ₹1,661 crore in the same quarter last year. Sequentially, the revenue climbed 17.9% from ₹2,416 crore in Q1 FY24.

This was the second consecutive profitable quarter for the company with adjusted EBITDA of ₹41 crore as compared to ₹12 crore profit in the previous quarter (Q1FY24).

“The growth momentum we witnessed in Q1FY24 continued in Q2FY24 driven by healthy growth across all our businesses,” says Deepinder Goyal, Founder & CEO, Zomato.

In Q2 FY24, Zomato’s quick commerce arm, Blinkit turned contribution positive for the first time. In Q2FY24, Blinkit’s contribution margin, as a percentage of Gross Order Value (GOV), rose to 1.3%, from -7.3 % in Q2FY23, when Zomato had acquired the instant grocery delivery service company. The GOV across B2C businesses (food delivery + quick commerce + Going-out) grew at 13% QoQ and 47% YoY.

During the July-September period of FY24, the food delivery business registered adjusted revenue of ₹1,925 crore in Q2FY24 from ₹1,742 crore in Q1FY24. The food delivery GOV rose 9% QoQ and 20% YoY, driven by growth in order volumes and growing adoption of the Gold program (3.8 million members as of Q2FY24 end, which contributed around 40% of GOV in the food delivery business).

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