Zomato sees Esop costs rising on grant of stock options to Blinkit leadership
Zomato’s costs on account of its employee stock ownership plan (Esop), which almost doubled year on year to Rs 161 crore in the March quarter, are expected to rise further.
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Costs incurred under the Esops head are non-cash expenses, and are likely to increase in the ongoing fiscal “on account of grant of Esops to the Blinkit leadership team and senior employees,” the company’s management said in a post-earnings call on Monday.
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Offering CollegeCourseWebsiteMITMIT Technology Leadership and InnovationVisitIndian School of BusinessISB Product ManagementVisitIIT DelhiCertificate Programme in Data Science & Machine LearningVisitZomato also announced a new stock ownership plan for 18.3 crore shares, or around 2% stake, worth approximately Rs 3,400 crore at Monday’s closing price – for which it has sought shareholder approval. “This new Esop pool should be sufficient for us for at least the next five years,” chief financial officer Akshant Goyal said.
The Rs 161 crore incurred in Esop costs for the January-March period compares to Rs 122 crore booked by the company in the December quarter, and Rs 84 crore in the March quarter of FY23.
Esop costs are added to the company’s adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) – a key metric on the basis of which its financial performance is gauged at an operational level. At a company level, adjusted Ebitda is defined as
