BillDesk-PayU deal trips up on a technicality

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Editor's note: Prosus, the parent company of PayU India, has walked away from its $4.7 billion commitment to acquire BillDesk a little over a year after first announcing the deal. The Amsterdam-headquartered investment group said in a stock exchange filing on Monday that “certain conditions” were not met before the time frame agreed upon to consummate the deal with the Indian payment gateway. An excerpt from the filing:  “PayU secured CCI approval on 5 September 2022. However, certain conditions precedent were not fulfilled by the 30 September 2022 long stop date, and the agreement has terminated automatically in accordance with its terms and, accordingly, the proposed transaction will not be implemented.” A long stop date is the time frame agreed to by all parties in a merger, acquisition or equity purchase for the deal to be completed. The deal to acquire BillDesk by PayU, had it proceeded to fruition, would have been the second largest in India’s startup and internet sector, eclipsed only by Walmart’s $16 billion acquisition of Flipkart in 2018. More importantly, the merged entity would have been by far …