CarDekho, the Indian online car marketplace startup, has allowed its employees to sell their stocks in the Company. The announcement is well timed, because the finance minister recently announced in the Budget 2020 that employee stock options (ESOPs) will now be taxable, when the employees sell their shares or leave the company, or for five years after exercising of shares, whichever happens earlier.
Almost a 100 employees will be eligible at Car Dekho, to cash out 50 per cent of their vested options in the ESOP exercise and secondary sale plan of CarDekho’s parent company, Girnarsoft. The consumer automotive portal is expected to buy back ESOPs worth $3.5 million. The employees who will be able to sell have either been in the company for more than two years or are ex-employees who have served the Company for at least four years.
CarDekho had allowed its employees to sell last year in April too. In December 2019, the Company was able to raise $70 million in series D funding from China’s Global Voyager Fund, the investment wing of Chinese insurance company, Ping An.
Working with about 4,000 auto dealers and 3,000 used car dealers, CarDekho claims to have driven 42 per cent of the retail sales of cars in the country. The Company’s revenue was $28 million, showing a growth of about 92 per cent, in the first half of the year 2019.
