Back in 2010, ordering food meant hunting for a drawer full of paper menus, calling a landline, and praying the guy understood "extra cheese." It was analog, chaotic, and oddly charming.
Fast forward to today, and we panic if our cilantro is not delivered in 8 minutes flat.
You might have noticed your favourite food app acting a bit different. In the markets, Zomato is now trading under the parent name Eternal Ltd. The message is clear. It is not just food anymore. With Blinkit leading the charge, they want to own your entire impulsive existence.
But yesterday, the Eternal stock took a small stumble, dropping about 1.6% after a big block deal went through.
The stock is hovering around ₹298, which is a long way from its chaotic early days. And whenever big chunks of shares change hands quietly, regular investors get nervous. The fear is simple: if the smartest money is selling, what do they know that I do not.
A block deal is a single trade of at least ₹10 crore, or about 5 lakh shares, done between two large parties. It happens in a special 35 minute window before the main market opens. Think of it as the VIP lane where big players swap seats without creating chaos for everyone else.
Why do these deals happen. Think of it like buying toilet paper.
If you go to a corner store and try to buy 5,000 rolls, you will empty the shelf, trigger panic, and the shopkeeper will hike the price for the next guy. That is buying on the open market.
A block deal is like going to the warehouse out back and buying a full pallet directly from the manager at a negotiated price. The buyer gets volume, the seller gets certainty, and the regular shoppers in the aisle do not see price tags swing wildly.
Eternal is now valued at over
Roughly the same value as some of India’s oldest steel and power giants, built on delivering idli batter and charging cables in 10 minutes.
Here is the catch. Even though Eternal is finally profitable, it is trading at a P/E of 90+. That is expensive.
A P/E of 90 means investors are paying about ₹90 for every ₹1 of profit the company makes today. In other words, the market is not buying today’s business. It is pre paying for a future where Blinkit becomes a default habit and growth stays strong for years.
But competition is not sleeping. Swiggy is pushing hard. Zepto is everywhere. And quick commerce is a game where discounts and delivery speed can turn into a cash burning contest very quickly.
So the real question is not "Is Eternal good." The question is "Can Eternal execute perfectly while everyone else is copying the playbook."
Block deals are not automatically bearish, but they do tell you big investors are actively taking profits while valuations are rich. At this price, Eternal has to keep delivering growth with very few mistakes.
Fun fact: Zomato was originally called Foodiebay before they realised it sounded too close to e Bay and rebranded in 2010.
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Subscribe to First ScrollSources: Groww (Eternal stock data) | Upstox (market data)