India's Zomato expands movie and event ticketing business with $244 million Paytm deal

BENGALURU (Reuters) -India's Zomato said on Wednesday it will acquire the movie and events ticketing businesses of digital payments firm Paytm for $244.2 million as the food delivery platform looks to beef up its fast-growing ticketing business.

The acquisition bolsters Zomato's presence in India's online ticketing market for movies and live events, currently dominated by Reliance-backed BookMyShow.

Paytm, which has been BookMyShow's closest competitor since 2017, will now hand over its market share to Zomato by selling its 'ticketnew' platform, which sells movie tickets, as well as its 'Insider' platform, which handles tickets to live events.

Zomato sees the acquisition boosting revenue at its non-core businesses by more than three-fold in the next two years, it said in a letter to shareholders.

The non-core businesses of restaurant table booking services and an events organizing and ticketing unit accounted for just 2% of Zomato's total revenue last year, but were also its fastest-growing segments.

Zomato began operating its ticketing business more than a year ago.

As part of the agreement, Paytm's platforms would to continue to offer ticketing services for 12 months before transitioning entirely to Zomato's newly launched 'District' mobile application.

Additionally, Zomato will absorb approximately 280 employees from Paytm's entertainment ticketing business.

Paytm built its movie ticketing business in-house and acquired Insider and TicketNew for 2.68 billion rupees between 2017 and 2018.

However, the company is now exiting these businesses to focus on its core payments and financial services operations, following a January order from India's central bank to wind down its banking unit.

($1 = 83.8680 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Nandan Mandayam in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid)