CCI approves Amazon’s proposal to buy Catamaran’s stake in Cloudtail parent

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) on Wednesday approved Amazon’s proposal to acquire Catamaran Ventures’ entire stake in Prione Business Services Pvt Ltd which houses Cloudtail, one of Amazon India’s largest sellers.




The anti-trust body said it had approved the transaction in a tweet. “Commission approves acquisition of Prione Business Services Private Limited by Amazon Asia-Pacific Resources Private Limited.”

Commission approves acquisition of Prione Business Services Private Limited by Amazon Asia-Pacific Resources Private Limited pic.twitter.com/7QdZRFRhc5

— CCI (@CCI_India) March 9, 2022

In December last year, Amazon had said that it will acquire entire stake in Prione Business Services, subject to the requisite regulatory approvals. The announcement came four months after Amazon and NR Narayana Murthy’s Catamaran decided against continuing their joint venture, Prione Business Services, beyond May 2022. Prione Business Services was formed in 2014 and was coming up for renewal on May 19, 2022. Amazon and Catamaran had not disclosed the reason behind the decision.

In 2018, the government had introduced stricter norms for e-commerce marketplaces with foreign investments, mandating that they do not sell products of their group companies on their platforms. Following that, Prione Business Services was restructured.

Cloudtail has emerged as one of the largest sellers on the local marketplace of Amazon in India. In 2020-21, its revenue shot up by over 45% to Rs 16,639 crore with a profit of more than Rs 182 crore. It had clocked a 27.6 per cent rise in revenue to Rs 11,412.75 crore in FY20 from Rs 8,944.71 crore in FY19, as per regulatory documents.