Amazon joins the fray with $70-$80mn bid to acquire FreeCharge

Joining the long list of potential buyers like Axis Bank, MobiKwik, Paytm, Bank of Baroda and Times Internet who have shown interest in buying FreeCharge, Amazon too has joined the fray with a $70-$80mn bid to acquire mobile wallet firm, according to an Economic Times report.

Citing two people in the know of the things, the report says that a term sheet has already been signed between the e-tailer and Jasper Infotech, which owns and operates both Snapdeal and FreeCharge. Despite the fact that Amazon's bid is higher than the previous bids for FreeCharge, it may be late to the bidding round and Axis Bank remains the favorite to acquire the digital payments platform.

In May, there were reports that Alibaba-backed Paytm has signed a non-exclusive term sheet to acquire Snapdeal’s digital payments unit FreeCharge in an all-cash deal, pegged at $45-90 million. But nothing came out of that deal.

FreeCharge was acquired by Jasper in 2015 in a cash-and-stock deal estimated at $400-450 million. The mobile wallet, like Snapdeal, has been on a look out for a buyer for quite some time. While funding has been a perpetual issue with FreeCharge, other structural and leadership changes have also marred the company’s value. The company appointed former Housing CEO Jason Kothari as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). This appointment came within a month of its earlier CEO Govind Rajan quitting the company.