Global firms rush to buy Alipay's stake in India's Zomato

(Reuters) - Global money managers and banks ranging from Vanguard to Goldman Sachs as well as the Singapore government rushed to grab a slice of Zomato after Chinese payments group Alipay offloaded its entire 3.44% stake in the Indian food delivery platform.

Earlier on Wednesday, Alipay launched a $400 million stake sale in Zomato through block deals, hours after Reuters exclusively reported the plan.

About 296 million shares of Zomato were sold by the Chinese company for 112.7 rupees ($1.35) each. Fund manager Fidelity, investment bank Morgan Stanley and sovereign wealth fund Abu Dhabi Investment Authority were among those that bought a sizable portion of the company's shares, exchange data showed.

Shares of Zomato have nearly doubled this year as the company started to turn a profit after going public in 2021, prompting some of its biggest investors to lock in gains on their investments.

The stock closed up 2.5% at 116 rupees, nearly on par with the listing price during its market debut. It had traded as low as 40.6 rupees in July 2022.

In October, Japan's SoftBank sold a 1.1% stake in Zomato, which is India's biggest food delivery service.

Alipay's exit from Zomato also comes at a time when Chinese investors have been cutting their stakes in Indian companies.

In August, China's Antfin sold a 10.3% stake in Indian financial giant Paytm to its founder and Chief Executive Vijay Shekhar Sharma.

($1 = 83.3269 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Indranil Sarkar, Kashish Tandon and Baranjot Kaur in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)