CCI approves Canada Pension Board’s investment in Delhivery

Competition Commission of India (CCI), the country’s antitrust regulator, has given the go-ahead for the investment by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) in logistics company Delhivery.

.@CCI_India approves the acquisition of shares in Delhivery Private Limited by Canada Pension Plan Investment Board

— CCI (@CCI_India) August 20, 2019

In May this year, CPPIB had sought CCI’s approval for a proposed 8% stake acquisition in Delhivery, a secondary transaction that primarily involved acquiring shares from existing shareholders of Delhivery.

E-mail queries sent to Sahil Barua, co-founder and CEO of the venture, seeking more information on the secondary transaction and the investment size did not elicit a response at the time of filing this report.

However, taking SoftBank’s recent investment in Delhivery recently as the base, the investment size could be anywhere between $140-$150 million as per ballpark estimates by TechCircle.

In March this year, after months of speculation, Delhivery confirmed that it had raised $413 million in a funding round led by the SoftBank Vision Fund.

Existing investors Carlyle and China's Fosun International also participated in the round.

Delhivery, earlier known as SSN Logistics was founded in 2011 by Barua, Mohit Tandon, Suraj Saharan, Kapil Bharti and Bhavesh Manglani. It started off as a company providing local on-demand services and subsequently became a full-fledged logistics services provider.

Delhivery is among the well-funded Indian logistics companies. It has raised capital from private equity firms Carlyle and Multiples Alternate Asset Management, US-based investment firm Tiger Global, Fosun, venture capital firm Nexus Venture Partners and Times Internet. 

For the financial year 2017-18, Delhivery reported a 38% rise in operating revenue to Rs 1,023.05 crore from Rs 743.70 crore the previous year. Expenses rose 27% to Rs 1,765.73 crore from Rs 1,393.54 crore. Net loss widened to Rs 692.21 crore from Rs 637.83 crore.

In April, Sumer Juneja, the India head of Japanese Internet conglomerate SoftBank Group Corp, joined the board of Delhivery.