Flipkart acquires 💊, Paytm's nightmare 😢, PhonePe buyback 💰
Flipkart acquires health tech startup, Creating a record led to Paytm's Day 1 flop, PhonePe to buy back ESOPs, Funding Deals & more.
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Flipkart acquires SastaSundar, enters crowded health tech sector🩺
The Flipkart Group has agreed to acquire a majority stake in online pharmacy Sastasundar Marketplace as it plans to launch its own healthcare business amid consolidation in India’s health tech industry during the pandemic. Flipkart did not comment on the size of the investment.
The new entity will be known as Flipkart Health+ and headed by Flipkart’s senior vice president Ajay Veer Yadav. It will leverage the company’s pan-India network and SastaSundar’s health tech expertise to provide consumers access to quality and affordable healthcare — first through an e-pharmacy and later via e-diagnostics and e-consultation, the company said on Friday.
The deal comes at a time when API Holdings, the parent firm of India’s largest e-pharmacy PharmEasy, has filed draft papers with Sebi for a Rs 6,250-crore IPO. In June, it had acquired lab chain Thyrocare Technologies to include diagnostics in its offerings.
The Tata Group acquired 1mg and Reliance Industries bought Netmeds to mark their forays into the sector.
Founder's obsession with creating a record led to Paytm's Day 1 flop😓
Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s ambition to make Paytm’s initial public offering (IPO) the country’s largest-ever was the main reason for its shocking market debut on Thursday, in which its stock tanked more than 27%, said a report by Bloomberg.
Sharma had made no secret of the fact that he wanted his company’s debut to eclipse the IPO record set by Coal India in 2010. But now, Paytm now looks like a cautionary tale--as an example of stunning overreach.
With the support of leading banks such as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, Paytm pushed up both the price and the size of the stock offering to a breaking point in the run-up to the IPO.
Retail investors who bought shares in the IPO are now sitting on heavy losses, as are global giants such as BlackRock and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
Paytm reported a 131% increase in gross merchandise value (or payments made to merchants via its platform) to $11.2 billion last month.
Let's see how this affects PAYTM in today's stock market.
Hot Shorts⚡
Purplle, an e-commerce beauty platform, has raised $60 million from Premji Invest, the family office of Wipro founder-chairman Azim Premji, valuing the D2C brand at $630 million.
Mindhouse, a curative wellness platform, has raised $6 million in funding led by Binny Bansal.
Byju's, India's most valuable startup, has leased about 3,000 sq ft in Mumbai as it expands its office footprint in India's financial capital.
PhonePe to buy back employee stock options worth Rs 135 crore💰
PhonePe, the digital payments arm of the Flipkart Group, announced on Friday that it would buy back employee stock options (ESOP) worth Rs 135 crore this year.
The company's founders will not be participating in the buyback, while the top leadership can sell up to 10 percent of their vested stock, it added.
💡 An ESOP (Employee stock ownership plan) refers to an employee benefit plan which offers employees an ownership interest in the organization. Employee stock ownership plans are issued as direct stock, profit-sharing plans, or bonuses, and the employer has the sole discretion in deciding who could avail of these options.
PhonePe had launched a Rs 1,500-crore employee stock ownership program last December. It was open to all its employees with a minimum annual salary of Rs 3.5 lakh. Typically, stock options are not granted to all employees in an organisation, especially at the junior levels.
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