Swiggy's staff can get $50 million under second tranche of ESOP plan

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Swiggy will buy back shares worth over $50 million from more than 2,000 employees, which they had received as part of the food and grocery delivery company’s employee stock option plan (ESOP). This is Swiggy's second tranche of ESOP liquidity program.

In June last year, Swiggy had offered the option to more than 900 eligible employees to opt to receive up to $23 million against their ESOP. In 2021, Swiggy had announced 2-year ESOP liquidity program for 2022 and 2023.

This time, eligible employees from Dineout, which Swiggy acquired last year, can also participate. “Two years ago, Swiggy announced a one-of-its-kind ESOP program to enable consistent wealth creation for employees through two distinct liquidity events in 2022 and 2023," said Girish Menon, Head of HR at Swiggy.

This comes after Swiggy earlier this eyar laid off hundreds of employees as part of companywide restructuring led by slowing growth in its food delivery business. Several tech and new-age firms had to fire thousands of employees this year amid funding winter and to cut costs.

In May, a fund managed by US-based asset management firm Baron Capital Group had marked down its valuation of Swiggy by 34% to $7.1 billion as of December 2022, regulatory filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) showed. Swiggy's key investor Prosus, the Dutch-listed arm of South African technology investor Naspers, had reported in June that losses for the food and grocery delivery platform had ballooned 80% year on year for January-December 2022 period.