One is a 153-year-old steel-to-software conglomerate with a middling supermarket chain. The other is a nine-year-old unicorn that has been instrumental in convincing Indians to buy fruit, vegetables, and staples online. One puts profitability first, and the other is in a business where increasing market share takes precedence over being in the black. And yet, the Tata Group wants the BigBasket cake.
The Tata Group’s impending
purchase
The Economic Times
Tata closes in on BigBasket, 1mg to power super app plan
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The acquisition is an opportunistic move for both companies. Because, despite the obvious differences on the surface, the two have more in common under the hood.
“For BigBasket, it’s not ‘move fast and break things’,” says the co-founder of an agritech startup that works with the e-grocer. The same applies to the Tata Group, unlike, say, billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries. “Tata and BigBasket are both very ethical but not ambitious,” says the senior executive with BigBasket. The agritech co-founder and BigBasket and Tata Group executives quoted in the story requested anonymity as they didn’t want to be seen publicly commenting on the deal.
BigBasket has little to gain from the Tata Group’s struggling
Star
The Ken
Tata-Tesco’s retail identity crisis is now an existential one
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However, the deal is its chance to find a replacement for its largest investor, the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group. Not only are ties between India and China strained, Alibaba itself is under regulatory
scrutiny
The Wall Street Journal
Alibaba, Amid Antitrust Pressure, Is Conducting Internal Review
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Credits
Written by Seetharaman G
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