India's Snapdeal calls off sale to Flipkart

India's Snapdeal said it had decided to remain independent and was ending all talks regarding a sale, bringing the curtain down on months of discussions around a possible acquisition of the e-commerce firm by bigger rival Flipkart.

The board of Jasper Infotech, which runs Snapdeal, had in-principle agreed to Flipkart's revised buyout bid of up to $950 million and a deal was pending approval of smaller shareholders, Reuters reported last week. But obstacles remained with sources saying founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal were mulling an alternate path.

"The company has now decided to pursue an independent path and is terminating all strategic discussions as a result," Snapdeal said in a statement on Monday.

The failure to forge a deal is a setback for Softbank Group, the largest investor in Snapdeal, as the Japanese firm has been trying to engineer an all-stock transaction for months, as a means to secure a sizeable stake in Flipkart, India's No. 1 home-grown e-commerce player. The Flipkart deal had a "number of onerous requirements" such as "indemnities and protections", a source involved in the talks told Reuters ahead of Snapdeal's decision on Monday.

Flipkart also insisted on getting approval from all Snapdeal shareholders for the deal to go through, two other sources said.