New Delhi, June 29 -- Japanese investment giant SoftBank, which makes private equity-style bets on technology-focused companies and harvested $300 million from its India portfolio earlier this month, has made another monetisation move from a local company it backed more than seven years ago.
The firm, which has made liquidity moves from InMobi, Ola Electric, Lenskart, and FirstCry among others in the last few months, has been reducing its stake in Mumbai-listed logistics company Delhivery Ltd over the last two years by selling shares in the open market, according to stock-exchange data.
SoftBank stated in a disclosure last week that it divested 14.6 million shares of Delhivery between September 24, 2024, and June 24, 2026, equivalent to a 1.94% stake in the company. As a result, it brought down its shareholding in Delhivery to 7.61%. It didn't disclose the amount it generated from the share sales. However, it would have harvested about Rs 2,330 crore, or around $249 million, per VCCircle estimates based on Delhiver's share prices at the time of the sales.
The disclosure comes about two and half years after its last disclosed sale in November 2023. At the time, Softbank pulled out Rs 738 crore, reducing its stake to about 12% via an open market transaction. It then divested about 1.13% in the quarter ended March 2024. It trimmed its stake by about 0.49% in the June 2024 quarter and sold a similar number of shares between July 1 and September 26 the same year.
Overall, since its last disclosed sale, SoftBank has encashed about Rs 3,050 crore worth of shares ($335 million), bringing down its shareholding to 7.61% in the process.
The Japanese firm had invested in the Gurugram-based logistics company in 2019, leading its $413 million (Rs 2,890 crore) Series F round. It infused nearly Rs 2,778 crore via its Vision Fund. Delhivery listed on the exchanges in May 2022 at a market capitalization of $5 billion.
The investment giant did not sell any stake before the listing. During the IPO, it sold shares worth Rs 365 crore. In March 2023, it parted with another 3.8% stake in the ecommerce-focused logistics company for around Rs 955 crore ($115.7 million).
So far, SoftBank has taken out Rs 5,106.3 crore from Delhivery. This puts its internal rate of return at about 24% in rupee terms, above the benchmark 20% chased by PE firms at the fund level.
In dollar terms, the IRR is around 19%, which is a turnaround from the sub-par returns that it clocked earlier. Its multiple on invested capital is 3x in rupee terms till date and 2.5x in dollar terms.
The company's share price has also recovered since plunging in 2022, and is only 4.5% lower than its IPO price.
Also last week, Nexus Venture Partners sold some more portion of its stake in Delhivery. Alpha Wave Global, which backed the startup in 2021 and then doubled down during its IPO in 2022, also exited the company last week. It sold its entire 2.24% stake, pocketing Rs 665 crore in the transaction.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.