Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma plans to sell 3% stake for $309M through block deal

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder of Indian fintech giant Paytm, is preparing to offload a 3% stake in the company through his investment vehicle Resilient Asset Management B.V. The block deal is valued at roughly ₹2,949 crore, or about $309 million.

The sale involves up to 19.2 million shares of One97 Communications, Paytm’s parent company. There’s also an upsize option that could see an additional 12.7 million shares, representing about 1.98% of the company, hit the market for approximately ₹1,946 crore ($204 million).

How Sharma ended up with these shares in the first place

Sharma set up Resilient Asset Management in 2023 specifically to acquire a 10.3% stake in One97 Communications from Antfin, a subsidiary of Chinese tech conglomerate Ant Group. That acquisition was part of a broader unwinding of Ant Group’s position in Paytm, driven largely by intensifying regulatory scrutiny of foreign investments in Indian fintech.

Ant Group completed its full exit from Paytm in August 2025, selling its remaining 5.84% stake for approximately ₹3,800 crore ($434 million). Before that final sale, Ant had already been steadily reducing its position: a 10.3% stake sale in August 2023, followed by a 4% divestment in May 2025 for roughly $246 million. All told, Ant Group shed more than 14% of its Paytm holdings over a two-year period.

What this means for Paytm’s ownership and stock

The use of India’s block deal mechanism is notable. Block deals are large-scale transactions executed on the stock exchange during a special trading window, typically at the opening of market hours. They allow institutional-sized positions to change hands without creating excessive volatility in the regular trading session.

The timing is worth watching. Paytm has been navigating a turbulent stretch that included regulatory action from the Reserve Bank of India against its banking unit, Paytm Payments Bank, which rattled investors and sent shares tumbling earlier in the cycle. The successful completion of Ant Group’s exit removed one major overhang.

The bigger picture for Indian fintech

Sharma’s sale is happening against a backdrop of significant change in how foreign capital flows into India’s fintech sector. Indian regulators have been tightening rules around foreign direct investment in sensitive sectors, and fintech sits squarely in the crosshairs given its role in handling payments data and financial information for hundreds of millions of Indian consumers.