India’s leading e-tailer, Flipkart, sees another markdown. A Morgan Stanley mutual fund has pegged the valuation of the e-commerce brand at $5.37 billion, down from its own valuation of $5.6 billion in September 2016.
The mutual fund, according to The Economic Times, assesses the value of Flipkart’s shareholding at $50.51 per share, as of December 2016, down from $52.13 per share in September 2016.
Flipkart, so far has had as many as 10 markdowns. It’s the fifth time that Morgan Stanley has marked down the e-tailer’s valuation. The fund first invested in the e-commerce marketplace when the latter raised $160 million, in October 2013. In February 2016, the fund decreased Flipkart’s valuation to $11 billion. The very next month, it marked it down to $9.39 million. By June, the fund put the e-commerce platform’s valuation at $9 billion. The big blow came in September when Morgan Stanley marked it down further by as much as 37.7% with the valuation pegged at $5.6 billion.
The flag-bearer of the Indian homegrown e-commerce industry suffered a series of devaluations in 2016. The new year too didn’t start on a good note. The first strike came from US-based mutual fund investor T Rowe Price that pegged Flipkart’s worth at $9.9 billion, down by 4% over its September 2016 figures.
The second strike came from Fidelity, in January this year, which marked down the e-tailer’s valuation by 36.1% to $5.56 billion. Fidelity had in August, last year, marked down the valuation of its Flipkart shares from $84.29 per share to $81.55 per share for the August-ended quarter.
The Indian e-commerce scene is going through troubled times lately, with Flipkart’s competition, Snapdeal, restructuring itself and in turn laying off over 600 people.
Read More: What’s ailing Flipkart and Snapdeal the flag-bearers of e-commerce in India
The year 2016 saw instability at the top management at Flipkart, with shuffles and exits. There was nothing new in 2017 too. Flipkart, in January, this year, elevated Kalyan Krishnamurthy as its CEO, replacing co-founder Binny Bansal, who was elevated to become the Group CEO. Krishnamurthy was heading the category management division at Flipkart. Binny himself had replaced Sachin Bansal, exactly a year ago. The latter is now the Executive Chairman.
A month later, i.e. in February 2016, Mukesh Bansal, founder of Myntra, which was acquired by Flipkart, too quit the company. Chief Business Officer Ankit Nagori too joined Mukesh on the exit route. Two months later, former Google executive Punit Soni, was roped in as the Chief Product Officer too said quits, within a year of his hiring.