PhonePe informed that the company would not be participating in the buyback any more. The top leadership have been permitted to sell 10 per cent of their vested stock.
Digital payment platform PhonePe announced a buyback of employee stock options (ESOPs) worth Rs 135 crore. The company informed that the buyback offer follows a three-tier model, based on seniority. Additionally, the company's founders would not be participating in the buyback whilst the top leadership have been permitted to sell up to 10 per cent of their vested stock.
Other current employees have been permitted to sell up to 25 per cent of their vested stock. The statement informed that the company has over 2,500 employees.
"Last December, we launched a new PhonePe ESOPs plan and issued ESOPs to 100 per cent of our employees across levels, functions and grades. All these employees will complete the one year cliff of their stock vesting next month, so it's a great time to offer some liquidity to everyone," PhonePe Head of HR Manmeet Sandhu said. He added that about 75 per cent of the company's present workforce would be eligible to participate in the current buyback offer.
The company had launched its ESOP programme in December last year. Bck then, it allotted ESOPs to all its 2,200 employees starting at a minimum worth of Rs 3.5 lakhs, cumulatively worth Rs 1,500 crore.
Late in October, the company had mentioned that it had started charging processing fees of Rs 1-2 per transaction for mobile recharges exceeding Rs 50. It had stated that the company was not alone in charging a fee on bill payments.
Part of the Walmart-owned Flipkart Group company had recorded more than two billion transactions across all its platforms combined in October. It had last clocked this number in February when it had registered a total of one billion monthly transactions. Moreover, the company informed that it had 145 monthly active users with a total annualised payments value worth $600 billion.
Buyback programs of various companies also play an additional role in retaining and attracting talent for the company at a time when tech hiring activity is at an all-time peak currently and retaining employees in the contemporary job market scenario might seem a difficult task to many firms.