Tightening cash burn: Housing.com to sack 600 staff in just three months

First it was the CEO and now it’s the employees. Online portal Housing.com will lay off 600 of its 2,600 employees across its business verticals in the next three months as it works toward restructuring its business and cutting costs, a report in The Economic Times has said .

Housing will now focus on its core technology and product and even shut down several of its non-performing business verticals such as its commercial properties, short stays and land businesses. Sources told CNBC-TV18 that a few of the people working in these verticals have been asked to either move to the digital or tech teams, or quit.

The rationale behind the restructuring is three-fold. Walk away from verticals that are not generating revenues and clean up the operations to get ready for fresh rounds of fund-raising. And three: monetise assets as the flab is cut away.

Housing.com is also planning to focus more on larger cities, going ahead.

A management representative at Housing told ET that the company was laying off 160 employees in non-core businesses that it plans to shut while under-performers in the engineering and product divisions too will be asked to leave.

The need to stem costs and reorient the strategy at the company follows months of internal turmoil which culminated in the ouster of former chief executive officer Rahul Yadav.

SoftBank, which owns about 32% stake in the company, has also agreed to invest another $30 million in the company as a bridge round, provided Housing meets certain operation targets in the next three months according to ET.