Netherlands-headquartered Prosus NV announced on Monday that it has cancelled a $4.7 billion deal to buy Indian payments firm BillDesk through its subsidiary PayU, after conditions on the deal weren’t met. The deal had received approval by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) in September, though “certain conditions precedent” weren’t met by the deadline at the end of last month, Prosus said in a statement.

The company didn’t elaborate on the conditions.

“Closing of the transaction was subject to the fulfilment of various conditions precedent, including approval by the CCI. PayU secured CCI approval on September 5. However, certain conditions precedent were not fulfilled by the September 30 long stop date, and the agreement has terminated automatically in accordance with its terms and, accordingly, the proposed transaction will not be implemented,” read a company blog from Prosus.

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Prosus has been a long-term investor and operator in India — investing close to $6 billion in Indian technology companies since 2005.

According to Bloomberg, the takeover would have been Prosus’s largest acquisition to date and was meant to create a digital payments giant in India. Since the deal was announced last year, the market for payments companies in India has weakened, and Prosus didn’t want to proceed after BillDesk missed the deadline. There’s no break fee associated with the deal.

Prosus is a global consumer internet group and one of the largest technology investors in the world. The group is focused on building businesses in the online classifieds, food delivery, payments and fintech, and education technology sectors in markets including India, Russia, and Brazil.

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First Published:Oct 3, 2022 1:23 PM IST