Morgan Stanley marks down India's Flipkart again

In a regulatory filing, Morgan Stanley indicated a value of $87.86 per share for Flipkart as of March 2016, down from the value of $103.97 indicated as of December 2015. That valuation also represented a reduction from $142.24 as of June 2015. Morgan Stanley first invested in Flipkart in 2013, as part of a consortium that contributed $360 million in all. It also participated in a $1 billion round in July 2014 led by existing investors Tiger Global and Naspers.

Mutual fund T. Rowe Price has also marked down Flipkart recently, along with a number of its other technology portfolio companies. In April the firm indicated a value of $120.70 per share for its stake in Flipkart as of March 2016; like Morgan Stanley, it had reported a value of $142.24 as of December 2015.

Following a $700 million funding round last year from Tiger Global and other investors, Flipkart claimed a valuation of $15.2 billion. After the markdowns from T. Rowe Price and Morgan Stanley, Indian media outlets have reported the company's current valuation to be around $9.4 billion.

Morgan Stanley and other mutual funds do not disclose their exact methods for calculating the valuation of their portfolio companies. In its filing Morgan Stanley indicated a variety of factors are used in the calculation, including company income and market performance of similar listed companies.

Flipkart was one of several tech portfolio companies that Morgan Stanley marked down from December 2015 to March 2016; the firm also reduced its valuation on Airbnb from $83.65 per share to $73.41, and cut Dropbox from $14.32 to $11.01.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Technology
• Consumer
• Performance
• India
• Morgan Stanley
• TMT