
Paytm last week granted 3.97 million new stock options to employees under the One97 Employees Stock Option Scheme 2019 (‘Esop 2019‘).
The exercise price of these stock options is Rs 9. The Noida-based fintech also allotted 177,114 equity shares to employees who have vested their options.
The Company’s scheme includes provisions for dealing with the options in case of retirement, resignation, termination, death, permanent incapacity, and abandonment.
It can be exercised anytime during the entire period of continuous active employment from the date of vesting, it added.
Each stock option is convertible into one fully paid-up equity share having a face value of Rs 1 each, said Paytm in a stock market disclosure, without revealing information on the number of employees who will benefit from the new grant.
Last month, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and chief executive officer of Paytm informed exchanges that his stock grants will be vested to him only after the company’s market capitalization crosses the initial public offering (IPO) level on a ‘sustained basis’.
He also said that he expects Paytm to be operationally profitable in the next six quarters.
At the current trading share price of Paytm at around Rs 557 per stock, the total value of the new stock option grant is around Rs 221 crore.
In a separate filing, the company said that it has allotted 177,114 equity shares to eligible employees under Employee Stock Option Plan 2008 and Employee Stock Option Plan 2019.
Following the allotment, the company’s paid-up equity share capital has increased from Rs 64.85 crore to Rs 64.87 crore.
In November, Paytm had gotten the green light from shareholders to expand its ESOP pool by more than two times from 24,094,280 equity options to 61,094,280 options.
A couple of months ago, Paytm’s stock has taken a hammering in the capital markets since it got listed on the bourses in November last year at an IPO price of Rs 2,150.