Meesho's Stock Gains Over 3% As Investors Absorbs Softbank's ₹1,650 Cr Stake Sale

Shares of Meesho rose more than 3% on Friday as investors lapped up the e-commerce marketplace stock a day after Japanese technology investor SoftBank divested a 1.7% stake in the company for ₹1,650 crore through block deals on the NSE.

Following the latest transaction, the scrip of the company went up by 3.3% to ₹216.67 apiece on the exchange, recovering despite the large block deal in which SoftBank pared its holding in Meesho.

SVF II Meerkat (DE) LLC, an affiliate of SoftBank, offloaded 8 crore shares in two tranches on Thursday at an average price of ₹206.30 apiece, taking the combined transaction value to ₹1,650.40 crore.

After the transaction, SoftBank's holding in Meesho declined to 6.87% from 8.6%.

The stake sale, however, found buyers, with a clutch of domestic and foreign institutional investors participating in the transaction.

Mutual Funds managed by Motilal Oswal, Franklin Templeton, Canara Robeco, and HSBC, along with HDFC Standard Life Insurance and Bajaj Life Insurance Company, were among the domestic institutional investors that picked up Meesho shares at the same price.

Foreign investors that participated in the transaction included Fidelity, Goldman Sachs, Manulife Singapore, Government Pension Fund of Norway, Copthall Mauritius, BofA Securities, Dendana Investments Mauritius, Ghisallo Capital Management, Morgan Stanley and Kuwait Investment Authority.

Millennium Management's arm Integrated Core Strategies (Asia) Pte, Societe Generale and Susquehanna International Group were also among the buyers.

The latest buying interest comes after private equity firms Elevation Capital and Peak XV Partners divested a combined 2.3% stake in Meesho for ₹1,949 crore last month.