Earlier, 166 employees of Paytm, including existing and former staff members, had converted their employee stock options to shares. With shareholders approving the expansion of the ESOP pool, from 2.4 crore to more than 6 crore, another 40 employees of Paytm have opted to convert their ESOPs to shares, ahead of the Rs 16,600 crore initial public offering (IPO). Now, at least 200 employees have converted their ESOPs to shares. These shares can be sold at a higher price at the time of the IPO.
In August, about 166 employees had been allotted about a million shares, including the Company’s president. Since such conversion of ESOPs into shares costs money, the Company is also arranging to help the employees obtain loans from its lenders. Paytm will help them get loans of up to Rs 100 crore, and will also pay the interest on these loans for six months, so that employees do not feel any financial pressure in their attempt to become shareholders. The Company is seeking help from IIFL, ICICI Securities and Edelweiss Capital for a credit line of Rs 100 crore for this purpose.
Paytm’s IPO is expected to be India’s largest and is valued at about Rs 1.47 lakh crore. The Company had posted a revenue of Rs 3,186 crore for FY 20-21 compared to the Rs 3,540 crore it posted in the previous year. Its losses dropped to Rs 1,701 crore during the same period as compared to about Rs 2,942 crore the previous year.
