Paytm Grants Stock Options To Employees

One97 Communications Ltd, which owns digital payments firm Paytm, has granted 3.9 million new employee stock options (Esops) to its staff under the One 97 Employees Stock Option Scheme 2019. 

The stock options granted with an exercise price of Rs 9 per stock, can be exercised anytime during the entire period of continuous active employment from the date of vesting, it added. 

Each stock option is convertible into one fully paid-up equity share having face value of Rs 1 each, said Paytm in a stock market disclosure, without revealing information on the number of employees who will benefit from the new grant. 

At the current trading share price of Paytm at around Rs 557 per stock, the total value of the new stock option grant is around Rs 221 crore. 

In a separate filing, the company said that it has allotted 177,114 equity shares to eligible employees under Employee Stock Option Plan 2008 and Employee Stock Option Plan 2019. 

Following the allotment, the company's paid-up equity share capital has increased from Rs 64.85 crore to Rs 64.87 crore.  

Around a couple of months before Paytm's listing in November, Paytm had got the greenlight from shareholders to expand its Esop pool by more than two times from 24,094,280 equity options to 61,094,280 options.

Paytm’s stock has taken a hammering in the capital markets since it got listed on the bourses in November last year at an IPO price of Rs 2,150. At the IPO price, Paytm had a market capitalization of nearly Rs 1.4 trillion ($18.6 billion), which has since reduced to Rs 36,115 crore ($4.69 billion). 

Paytm has since lost its tag as the most-valued startup in India to Byju's (at the IPO price, it was seeking a valuation of about $600 million more than the edtech startup's valuation). The company also lost its tag as the most-valued fintech startup in India, and now trails RazorPay's $7.5 billion valuation in the Indian fintech space. 

Public shareholders have raised concerns over the company’s path to profitability as it has not registered a single net profit to date. 

Last month, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and chief executive officer of Paytm informed exchanges that his stock grants will be vested to him only after the company’s market capitalization crosses the initial public offering (IPO) level on a ‘sustained basis’. He also said that he expects Paytm to be operationally profitable in the next six quarters.