Walmart, Inc. will pay $16 billion for a roughly 77% stake in Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart – the US retailer's largest-ever deal – in an attempt to compete with rival Amazon.com, Inc. in a key growth market.
It expects the transaction to hurt fiscal 2019 earnings per share by 25 cents to 30 cents if the deal closes before the end of the second quarter.
"We will not know for five to ten years whether this transaction is successful, strategically or financially," said Steven Roorda, portfolio manager with Minnesota-based Stonebridge Capital Advisors.