bengaluru new delhi walmart which is in the midst of protracted negotiations for a significant stake in flipkart will likely gain about three to four seats on the tenmember board of indias largest online retailer that will continue to be run as an independent company if the deal goes through said three people aware of the discussions the troika of cofounders binny bansal and sachin bansal along with chief executive officer kalyan krishnamurthy will remain in their current posts as the countrys most valuable startup targets a potential public offer in the future flipkart will keep its startup culture to battle amazon said one of the people cited above indicating that while the entry of walmart will alter the shareholding structure of flipkart if the deal fructifies there will be no change in the top management pattern binny is currently the group ceo of flipkart while sachin serves as executive chairman meanwhile a potential offer from rival amazon to invest in flipkart which is also in the fray is yet to come through sources said even as discussions with walmart head into the final lap japans softbank which owns over 20 stake in flipkart is said to be in favour of an offer from amazon but other investors are wary as they believe that such a deal could run into trouble with competition regulators with walmart expected to invest over 12 billion into flipkart some of the industry insiders et spoke to were of the view that the bentonvilleheadquartered conglomerate would look to control finance and legal matters at the entity they may get a cfo at the helm and legal compliance will be handled by walmart said one of the persons cited above walmart is aiming for at least a 5560 stake in flipkart in a deal likely to value the company between 1820 billion according to the people mentioned above they walmart are investing because they dont know how to run an online commerce company said a second source with the investment in jd and acquisition of jet they know that running an online business is very different from running a retail company jdcom is the second largest online retailer in china after alibaba and walmart owns about a 12 stake in it jet is an online retailer in us acquired by walmart for 3 billion in 2016 rahul chowdhri a partner at stellaris venture believes walmart will retain the current management structure at flipkart as having a local team that has built it from ground up and understands the local nuances becomes very important the acquirer walmart doesnt have an ecommerce team in india so it is difficult to build a team of its own from scratch but this will be supplemented by their walmarts global understanding of any technology knowledgesharing that will help flipkart he said flipkarts negotiations also include a clause saying that the company can go for a public offering said one of the people privy to the discussions