{"id":12908,"date":"2018-08-27T15:23:44","date_gmt":"2018-08-27T15:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=12908"},"modified":"2018-08-27T15:23:44","modified_gmt":"2018-08-27T15:23:44","slug":"warren-buffett-is-investing-in-india-for-the-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=12908","title":{"rendered":"Warren Buffett is investing in India for the first time"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Buffett\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Warren Buffett is gearing up to invest in India’s top mobile payments firm.<\/h2>\n

The renowned investor’s company, Berkshire Hathaway<\/span> (BRKA<\/a><\/span>)<\/span>, is set to pick up a stake in Paytm, a source familiar with the deal told CNNMoney on Monday. <\/p>\n

The two companies <\/strong>have been discussing for several months an investment of about 25 billion rupees ($360 million) that would value Paytm at around $10 billion, the source said, adding that the deal could be announced as soon as this week. <\/p>\n

Paytm declined to comment, while Berkshire Hathaway did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours. <\/p>\n

The news was first reported<\/a> by Indian newspaper Mint. <\/p>\n

Buffett’s first investment in an Indian company will see him enter a fast-growing market where some of Silicon Valley’s top players are already looking to make a mark. <\/p>\n

Google<\/span> (GOOGL<\/a><\/span>)<\/span> launched its mobile payments app Tez<\/a> in India last year, and WhatsApp, the mobile messenger owned by Facebook<\/span> (FB<\/a><\/span>)<\/span>, is testing a similar service<\/a>. <\/p>\n

“There is a lot of traction,” said DD Mishra, a research director at Gartner. “This market is going to be very competitive, and you need deeper pockets to survive for a long time,” he added. <\/p>\n

\"paytm
Paytm is India’s biggest online payments firm with more than 300 million users.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Indians love to do business in cash, and most transactions in the country are still conducted in rupee notes and coins. <\/p>\n

But Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s shock decision to ban 86% of India’s cash<\/a> in November 2016 gave a big boost to online wallets such as Paytm, which signed up around 10 million new users<\/a> within a month. <\/p>\n

It is the market leader in mobile payments, with more than 300 million users, and has also started an online retail platform called Paytm Mall to take on Amazon<\/span> (AMZN<\/a><\/span>)<\/span> and Flipkart, which was bought by<\/a> Walmart<\/span> (WMT<\/a><\/span>)<\/span> earlier this year. <\/p>\n

India’s large young population with growing disposable incomes make it a hugely promising market for mobile payments and online shopping, said Kenny Liew, an analyst at research firm Fitch Solutions. <\/p>\n

“This will be translated into more spending, leading to increased volumes of e-commerce sales and payments for Paytm to capture,” Liew added. <\/p>\n

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\"India's\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Buffett has spoken previously about his bullishness on India, saying in an interview with a local TV channel last year that the country had “incredible” potential<\/a> as a market. <\/p>\n

“If you tell me a wonderful company in India that might be available for sale, I’ll be there tomorrow,” he said. <\/p>\n

An investment by the Oracle of Omaha, as he is popularly known, will make people sit up and take notice. Berkshire Hathaway will join Chinese tech giant Alibaba<\/span> (BABA<\/a><\/span>)<\/span> and Japanese conglomerate SoftBank<\/span> (SFTBF<\/a><\/span>)<\/span> as big name investors in Paytm. <\/strong> <\/p>\n

“Given that Buffett is a fundamental investor and most of his investments last at least a decade, it is an unambiguous signal that Paytm would be relevant over such a long time horizon,” said Vaidyanathan Krishnamurthy, a professor of finance at the Indian School of Business. <\/p>\n

“The fact that he is investing in an Indian tech company is a big moment for all Indian tech startups.” <\/p>\n

CNNMoney (New Delhi) <\/span> First published August 27, 2018: 8:33 AM ET<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Warren Buffett is gearing up to invest in India’s top mobile payments firm. The renowned investor’s company, Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA), is set to pick up a stake in Paytm, a source familiar with the deal told CNNMoney on Monday. The two companies have been discussing for several months an investment of about 25 billion rupees…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":12909,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}