Indian food delivery firm Zomato’s stock price rallied on Monday after 2.14% of shares, worth Rs 288 crore ($34 million), changed hands, according to stock exchange data.
While the buyers and sellers in the deal were not known, Reuters had earlier reported that Japan’s SoftBank Group will likely sell shares in Zomato as the lock-in period for investors post the company’s acquisition of Blinkit ended on Aug. 25.
Softbank was issued a 3.55% stake in Zomato when the latter bought Blinkit for $538.05 million last year. Peak XV and Tiger Global also received Zomato shares as part of the Blinkit acquisition.
This comes weeks after Zomato posted a quarterly consolidated profit for the first time since its inception, as more consumers ordered food and groceries on the platform.
For the first quarter that ended June 30, 2023, Zomato posted a profit of Rs 2 crore ($2,41,751) against a loss of Rs 186 crore in the corresponding period last year. Revenue from operations in the period rose 71% to Rs 2,416 crore.
Separately, according to Business Today, Zomato has started levying a platform fee of Rs 2 per order for select users, extended the fee to more users, and hiked it to Rs 3 per order in some tier-II cities.
Zomato shares opened 5% higher on Monday on BSE Ltd, and closed up 1.5% at Rs 92 per share.