Digital payments platform PhonePe has announced a buyback of employee stock options (ESOPs) worth about ₹135 crore.
The buyback offer will follow a three-tier model based on seniority. The company’s founders will not be participating in the buyback, top leadership will be able to sell up to 10 per cent of their vested stock and all other current employees will be able to sell up to 25 per cent of their vested stock.
Commenting on the development, Manmeet Sandhu, Head of HR, PhonePe said, “Last December, we had 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. Almost 75 per cent of our current workforce is eligible to participate in the current buyback offer, and for most it’s the first time in their careers that they’ve either owned ESOPs or had a chance to liquidate them.”
In December last year, PhonePe launched its ESOPs program where it allotted ESOPs to all its 2,200 employees starting at a minimum of ₹3.5 lakhs, cumulatively worth ₹1500 crores.
PhonePe is digital payments platform with over 335 million registered users. Using PhonePe, users can send and receive money, recharge mobile, DTH, data cards, pay at stores, make utility payments, buy gold and make investments. The company has processed over 2 billion transactions on its platform in Oct’21.