Walmart-Flipkart deal to make many crorepatis, boost luxury market

Flipkart has lucked out! After Walmart’s buyout of the e-commerce platform for $16 billion on Wednesday nearly $500 million was set aside by the American retail corporation to buy back shares from existing and former employees making a lot of them crorepatis. The ESOP (employee stock option) payouts may see executives splurge on real estate, apartments and expensive goods like luxury cars. The ESOP buy back will be the biggest in the Indian start-up ecosystem and Flipkart’s second major buy back after last year’s $100 million share repurchase by Japan’s Softbank, which invested $2.5 billion in the e-commerce platform. Over the past six years, Flipkart has seen four other buybacks, according to employees though none have been of the scale of Walmart.