Morgan Stanley further trims down the valuation of domestic ecommerce major Flipkart

A Morgan Stanley fund has further marked down the valuation of domestic ecommerce player Flipkart to ~$5.37 billion after assessing the same as of Dec’16. The fund assessed the value of Flipkart’s shares at $50.51 a piece, a 3% reduction from its Sept’16 estimate of $52.1 apiece. However, it is significantly lower than the $142.15 per share price which the firm commanded when it raised $700 million at a valuation of $15.2 billion in June’15. Several other mutual fund investors including T Rowe Price, Fidelity and Valic, too, had marked down Flipkart’s worth the past year.

The current markdown has come at an inappropriate time for the startup as it is looking to raise $1-1.5 million at valuation of $10-12 billion. Flipkart has been reporting positive results in its topline after Kalyan Krishnamurthy, previously MD at Tiger Global Management, took charge at the top since mid-2016. He was instrumental in delivering strong Big Billion Day sale and has been the driving factor behind the firm’s success in last 4-5 months. Last year, Binny Bansal, previous CEO, had said that “In March’17, we will be in an extremely good growth momentum, going back to 40% year-on-year growth and then accelerating over the next year”.