BankBazaar, Delhivery roll out ESOP plans

A&A Dukaan Financial Services-operated loan aggregation platform BankBazaar and Gurugram headquartered logistics firm Delhivery have, separately, announced employee stock ownership (ESOP) plans.

While BankBazaar added equity shares worth $15 million (Rs 109 crore) to the ESOP pool, Delhivery has allotted partly paid shares worth Rs 178.5 crore to 17 people in the leadership team including the founders.

BankBazaar also said, in a statement, that it has rolled out salary increments and promotions across all levels effective 01 January 2021, with salary hikes averaging at 10%. 

“ESOPs are an incentive for everyone to be invested in long-term organisational growth. We have lived through a difficult and unpredictable year and come out very strongly at the end of it. Our team pulled off all stops to build and scale our capabilities and see our revenues bounce back to pre-Covid levels. By allotting ESOPs to employees at all levels, we are enabling every employee in the organisation to reap the benefits of the business they have helped create,” V Sriram, chief HR officer at BankBazaar.com said.

Delhivery’s ESOP plan was reported by Entrackr, citing regulatory filings. 

The development for SoftBank backed Delhivery comes at a time when it is reportedly planning to go public in 2022-23. The company has already received Rs 17.04 crore subscription money out of the whole consideration of Rs 178.5 crore and the rest will be collected on later calls, the report said. 

Delhivery’s co-founders Sahil Barua, Kapil Bharati, Sandeep Barasia, Ajith Pai and Amit Agarwal have been allotted shares worth Rs 24.63 crore each. Remaining shares in the tranche have been allotted to the rest of employees.

As for BankBazaar, the company saw a strong recovery in 2020 and claims that it is now poised to close this financial year with operational month-on-month profitability by March 2021 despite the pandemic.

The revenue from credit cards grew by over 20% year on year and 72% of the credit transactions is now contactless in less than a year since the start of Digital KYC. 

In November 2020, the Chennai-based company had announced fresh hiring, salary hikes and promotions on the back of strong signs of revenue recovery.