Flipkart issues ESOPs worth $100 million to senior and middle-level staff as part of efforts to retain key talent

Leading e-commerce player Flipkart has reportedly disbursed employee stock ownership plan (ESOPs) to its senior and middle-level staff, a media report said. The exercise, which is a part of the e-commerce major’s efforts to retain key talent, is expected to be in the range of $100 million, The Economic Times said. The report added that the employees have been allotted the shares at a price of $125-130 per unit. Some employees were given shares worth their full-year salary, while others received shares equivalent to their six-month remuneration, it said. In September last year, Walmart-backed Flipkart had offered its employees an opportunity to cash in on part of their stock holding in the company. A Flipkart spokesperson had said the ESOP repurchase programme was part of its “continuing efforts to thank and reward our employees for their service. Flipkart has a strong culture of fairness and does acknowledge that employees are an invaluable asset. We take immense pride in being the employer of choice and believe in rewarding employees by making them partners in the organisation’s success”. [caption id=“attachment_4237505” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters.[/caption] In December 2017, Flipkart had bought back Esops worth over $100 million from over 3,000 current and former employees of the company as well as its other units such as Myntra, Jabong and PhonePe. In the biggest M&A deal in the booming e-commerce sector, Walmart in May 2018 announced buying 77 percent stake in Flipkart. Its investment includes $2 billion of new equity funding that would help Flipkart to accelerate its growth pace amid stiff competition from Amazon, which is also pumping in huge funds into its India operations. Recently, in a view to capture a large market share of the online grocery segment, Flipkart launched its online grocery store Flipkart Supermart in Mumbai. The Walmart-owned company had started its online grocery business a year and a half ago and is present in Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Delhi. Flipkart is locked in an intense battle for market leadership in India with American giant Amazon. Mukesh Ambani has also announced ambitious plans of an e-commerce platform to tap into the country’s digital shopping segment that is forecast to touch $200 billion in the next few years. --With PTI inputs