Paytm Shares Slip To 52-Week Low Amid Exodus Of Leaders

SUMMARY

Shares of fintech major Paytm slipped by 5% to INR 317.45 during the intra-day trading on BSE on May 8

In line with the drop in the share prices, Paytm’s market cap has shrunk to $2.41 Bn

The drop in the shares for the fintech major comes amid an increased number of departures in its key leadership

Continuing its recent skid in the stock market, shares of fintech major Paytm slipped by 5% to INR 317.45 during the intra-day trading on BSE on Wednesday (May 8). With this, the stock has hit a 52-week low, and its market cap has slid under $2.5 Bn.

In line with the drop in the share prices, Paytm’s market cap has shrunk to $2.41 Bn; its shares were trading at INR 370.2 on the BSE as of Friday (May 3).

However, since then share prices have continued to slide by 5% in every session this week. After dropping to INR 351.70 on Monday, the shares went down to INR 334.15 on Tuesday.

Paytm has seen increased volatility ever since the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) clampdown on certain operations of its payments bank business in late January.

The Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led company regained some momentum on the bourses after securing the third-party application provider (TPAP) licence from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on March 15, but the recent departures of key leaders has set it back further.

As reported by Inc42 this week, founder and CEO Sharma is looking to take charge of key verticals as a number of high-level executives have either quit the company or are being reassigned from their existing verticals.

The top deck rejig involves COO and president Bhavesh Gupta, CBO of user growth and UPI Ajay Vikram Singh, CBO of the offline payments business Bipin Kaul and CBO of the consumer payments vertical Sandeepan Kashyap all moving away from the company.

The list also features Paytm parent One 97 Communications’ CMO Sumit Mathur as well as senior vice president of business Praveen Sharma, and Paytm Payments Bank MD and CEO Surinder Chawla all putting in their papers.

Amid all these exits, Sharma is taking charge of Paytm in a big way and is expected to work directly with new leadership being put in place for key verticals as existing business heads and vertical heads are stepping away.

Paytm is expected to announce its much-anticipated Q4 FY24 results by the end of the month. All eyes will be on key revenue growth and profitability metrics, both of which are expected to see some decline as the company’s regulatory troubles take their toll on the business.