No Deal

The cancellation of the PayU-BillDesk deal is a loss not just for its investors, but has broader lessons too

- BINU PAUL

IN A SURPRISE move, Amsterdam-headquartered investment firm Prosus N.V. has called off its biggest acquisition to buy Indian payments gateway firm BillDesk for $4.7 billion. Even more surprising is the fact that the deal collapsed in less than a month after receiving clearance from the Competition Commission of India (CCI). The all-cash deal, touted to be the largest for India’s fintech sector, was supposed to help Prosus’ payments arm PayU create a digital payments giant that would process payments worth $147 billion in annualised total payments value (TPV). For perspective, Razorpay, India’s leading payments and banking platform for businesses, processed transactions worth $80 billion in annualised TPV in April 2022.