Paytm employees to make way for new investors with share sale

By

Maverick Martins

Published
Jan 24, 2018

Indian digital payments and e-commerce firm Paytm could have some new investors on-board as employees who owned shares under Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) programme worth Rs 320 crore (approx $50 million) are planning to encash their stocks.
 

Last year employees who owned Paytm's parent One97 Communications stocks encashed, which cost the company Rs 100 crore ($15.6 million).
 
However, this time the stocks are likely to be sold to new investors like Discovery Capital with the secondary share sale expected sometime next week, a news agency reported citing anonymous sources.

When contacted, a Paytm spokesperson declined to comment.
 
Indian start-ups as part of its strategy to retain employees have started offering perks in form of stocks which is proving to be profitable to the employees.
 
India’s leading e-commerce player Flipkart was one of the first company to start this programme and had recently spent around Rs 642 crore (approx $100 million) to buy back stocks from current and former employees under the company’s ESOP programme.
 
Paytm with the backing of investors like Alibaba and Softbank continues to remain bullish in the digital and e-commerce space by pumping in money across all verticals. Softbank is expected to pump in 1932 crore rupees ($300 million) into the e-commerce entity next year to help the firm with its expansion plan.