new delhi online automobile classifieds firm cartrade is in the final round of discussions to acquire rival carwale group for about 120 million or approx rs 790 crore a person in the know of the matter said the deal is almost final we are expecting the formal announcement to come in a few weeks the source told et the deal includes carwale and bikewale portals cardekho an auto portal backed by ratan tata had also been in the fray for acquiring carwale with a bid of 100 million sources said cartrade promoter vinay sanghi declined to confirm the development i dont want to comment on this i will neither decline nor confirm this he told et if the deal is struck then it would be the second big consolidation in the automobile classified space after cardekho acquired zigwheels an auto portal owned by times internet for an undisclosed amount in july a year ago cardekho had bought naspersbacked gaadicom carwale is backed by axel springer one of largest digital publishing house which owns the majority stake while founder mohit dubey owns less than 10 while cardekhocom is backed by sequoia capital and hillhouse capital one of the biggest investment funds from china carwale claims to have registered 2108 million visits to its portals carwale and bikewale in august 2847 percent jump over the number of visits a year earlier carwale alone clocked 1685 million visits after the acquisition by cartrade dubey will have 2 percent stake in the joint entity sources said for financing the deal the mumbaibased cartrade has formed a consortium of four investors including jp morgan goldman sachs and tiger global sources said some industry experts however consider the deal value to be too high there is not much science in understanding these costs its like any product if there are multiple buyers what they are willing to pay becomes the price of the product right now there are people who are willing to pay anything for what they believe is important in their ambition to gain a position in a promising market i dont personally think these valuations are justified in the current situation as they are very high said kashyap deorah former ceo of futurebazaarcom and founder of chalo restaurant app they believe that after the us and china india will be third largest economy and they dont want to miss out those opportunity so before anybody else takes out the claim everyone wants to take pole position when india emerges as the third largest economy said deorah who has just finished his book on the subject the golden tap currently only 20 percent of indias population have access to internet industry experts expect that in the coming 56 years more than half of the countrys population will be using the internet opening a huge opportunity for online firms carwale claims to have registered 2108 million visits to its portals carwale and bikewale in august 2847 percent jump over the number of visits a year