Zomato Allots 38.72 Lakh Equity Shares Under ESOP Plans

Foodtech major Zomato has alloted 38.72 Lakh equity shares under its employee stock option plans (ESOPs).

In an exchange filing on Thursday (August 29), Zomato said that its board approved the allotment of 38.72 Lakh equity shares having a face value of INR 1 each as fully paid-up upon exercise of 15.48 Lakh vested options to identified employees of the company and its subsidiaries.

Of these, 23.24 Lakh shares have been allotted under Zomato ESOP 2018, 4.48 Lakh shares under Zomato ESOP 2021, and 10.99 Lakh shares under Zomato ESOP 2022.

Following the new allotment, the company’s subscribed and paid-up equity share capital has increased to INR 883.43 Cr from INR 883.05 Cr earlier.

Earlier this month, ahead of its Q1 FY25 earnings, Zomato increased its ESOP pool size with new allotments of more than 35.17 Lakh equity shares. Besides, last month, the startup also said that it received shareholders’ approval to adopt and implement a new employee stock option plan, Zomato ESOP 2024, to grant 18.26 Cr employee stock options.

The developments come at a time when Zomato has been seeing improvements in its financials and bottom line, particularly driven by its quick commerce business Blinkit.

Zomato’s consolidated net profit surged multifold year-on-year (YoY) to INR 253 Cr in Q1 FY25, while revenue from operations jumped 74% YoY to INR 4,206 Cr.

The company said during its quarterly earnings announcement earlier this month that despite the expected increase in ESOP charges and cash employee expenses, total employee cost (including cash expense and non-cash ESOP charge) as a percentage of adjusted revenue would continue trending downwards in FY25 and beyond.

Zomato is looking to further shore up its revenue by focussing on going-out business. As part of this, the company announced the completion of acquisition of Paytm’s events and movie ticketing subsidiaries and also launched ‘Book Now, Sell Anytime’ feature for tickets bought for any live event on the Zomato app.

The Deepinder Goyal-led company has also been on an experiment spree for its food delivery business, launching new features and discontinuing offerings which didn’t work. Earlier this week, it rolled out ‘Zomato for Enterprise’ (ZFE) for more seamless food expense management of the orders placed by corporates and their registered employees. This came days after it launched an ‘order scheduling’ feature.

However, the company’s troubles with tax authorities continue unabated. Earlier today, Zomato said it has been slapped with GST demands and penalties of over INR 4.59 Cr.

Shares of Zomato ended today’s trading session marginally down at INR 252.2 on the BSE. The shares have gained 104% year to date.