Zomato To Grant 12 Million Shares To Eligible Employees

The company via regulatory filings revealed that every one of these stock options would be convertible into only fully paid-up equity share with a face value of Rs 1 each

Food delivery firm Zomato on Friday announced that it will grant 12 million stock options its employees. Notably, earlier the firm said that it would grant 116 stock options under the Foodie Bay ESOP 2014 scheme to its employees and 11.9 million stock options under the Zomato ESOP 2021 scheme.

The company via regulatory filings revealed that every one of these stock options would be convertible into only fully paid-up equity share with a face value of Rs 1 each, reported The Financial Express. The allotted shares would not be subject to lock-in, it noted.

Notably, the company’s shares settled at Rs 274.65 apiece on the NSE in the last trading session on Friday. This would mean that the latest ESOPs would be worth nearly Rs 327 crore. 

The firm informed that the stock options granted to the employees can be exercised within 10 years from the date of vesting of options, or 12 years from the listing date, whichever is later.

During the 2023-24 fiscal year (FY24), the ESOP charges of the firm accounted for 31 per cent of the overall employee cost at Rs 515 crore. Comparatively, the ESOP charges touched Rs 878 crore during the 2021-22 fiscal year. 

Addressing the shareholders via a letter in the first quarter, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal, said, “ESOPs are a critical lever to drive ownership in our organisation — particularly in businesses like ours, which are in early stages of market development across all of our verticals.”

Before the first quarter earnings for the current 2024-25 fiscal year (FY25), the company allotted over 3.5 million employee stock options, which comes up to shares worth nearly Rs 81 crore. Earlier, the firm received approval from the shareholders to create a new employee stock option pool of 182 million shares, coming up to be worth more than Rs 3,800 crore.