"Alibaba deciding to start operations directly shows how badly their Indian investments have done so far," tweeted Bansal. Snapdeal had raised $500 million from Alibaba, Foxconn and SoftBank in August 2015. "While Flipkart did not reply to email sent by ET Magazine, Snapdeal declined to comment on 'speculations. But what about the prospects of getting SoftBank, one of the largest investors in Snapdeal with a 33% stake, on board? And if the Flipkart-Snapdeal deal is being driven by investors, that may be of little help operationally.“I am not sure if a strategy so heavily dependent on alignment of investor interests is the right battle to choose,” says Bhattacharya.However, there are takers for a Flipkart-Snapdeal deal.

Source: Economic Times April 15, 2017 18:56 UTC