Walmart didn’t refer to Sachin Bansal even once in its official statement announcing the deal. : Bengaluru: In October, less than two months after Flipkart had agreed to a $2.5 billion investment deal with SoftBank Group Corp., top executives from the American retail giant Walmart reached out to Flipkart. They wanted to discuss a potential deal. Walmart had held early talks with Flipkart even in late 2016, but at that time, Flipkart executives weren’t convinced that Walmart was serious about investing in the company.