Walmart's next acquisition could be a bust - at least in the near-term, analyst says

AP/Nick Ut

• Walmart wants to buy Flipkart, India's version of Amazon.
• Walmart has entered the e-commerce space mainly through acquisitions.
• This purchase is a bad idea, Oppenheimer analyst Rupesh Parikh wrote in a note to clients.
• Watch Walmart trade in real time here.

Walmart's foray into e-commerce has been mainly through acquisitions, and the next move it could make may be a bust, according to Oppenheimer analyst Rupesh Parikh.

"We view a potential acquisition of Flipkart as potentially negative in the shorter term as it likely leads to earnings dilution," Parikh wrote. Flipkart is India's version of Amazon.

Walmart is reportedly in talks with Flipkart to acquire a 51% stake in the company for between $10 billion and $12 billion.

Walmart recently bought Bonobos for $300 million and Jet.com for $3.3 billion. The Jet.com acquisition is said to be Walmart's most potent weapon in its battle against Amazon for share in the e-commerce space.

But the potential Flipkart purchase would likely detract value from Walmart because it would suffer "potential dilution related to a Flipkart stake,"Parikh wrote. While Flipkart's financials are hard to track down, it is reported the company lost roughly $1.4 billion on $3 billion of revenue last year.

Parikh assumes Flipkart will lose about $750 million in 2018, which underpins his estimate that a Walmart acquisition of the Indian e-commerce giant would dilute Walmart's earnings-per-share by 5%.

Mathematics aside, Parikh also warns the purchase "could unnerve investors playing for an intermediate-term earnings acceleration."

Parikh emphasized that he has little knowledge of Flipkart's financials, and that his dilution estimate is strictly for the short-term.

Walmart is down 10.57% on the year.

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