IPO-bound payments firm Paytm is witnessing multiple high profile exits just ahead of its initial public offering including that of Amit Nayyar who was brought in to spearhead the company’s financial services ambitions.
Nayyar who joined Paytm in August 2019 led its foray into financial services verticals across lending, insurance and wealth management. He was also responsible for strategy and leadership hiring.
According to people privy to the development, he was responsible for the hiring of Varun Sridhar, Vineet Arora and Bhavesh Gupta. While Sridhar heads Paytm Money, Arora and Gupta are the chief executives of Insurance and lending businesses of Paytm.
While the exit at a time when Paytm is counting heavily on its financial services ahead of the IPO seems intriguing, according to one of the sources quoted above it seems that he had put a structure in place before he exited the company.
Nayyar also played a key role in group level corporate development, mergers and acquisitions besides investor engagements.
Other people to have exited the company in the last few months include names like Rohit Thakur, the chief human resource officer, Amit Veer, chief business officer and senior vice president of user growth and Jaskaran Singh Kapany, the head of marketing of Paytm.
While Thakur exited the company last month, Veer and Kapany are expected to have exited in March and February, respectively.
While Veer is now working as the chief strategy officer of Rocket Internet, Kapany has joined smartphone maker Xiaomi as its chief marketing officer.
“As a company, we do not comment on personnel changes. We have built an incredible management team with some of the most reputed names in the industry, who are focused on driving growth at Paytm,” Paytm said in response to a query sent by Moneycontrol. It did not comment on individual exits.
One97 Communications, the parent of digital payments giant Paytm is likely to file its DRHP with market regulator Sebi shortly after the firm’s EGM scheduled for July 12, Moneycontrol reported on July 6.
Recently, the company also witnessed the exit of Jing Xiandong of Ant Group from its board who is being replaced by Douglas Lehman Feagin. This exit was part of the company’s rejigging process during which it also appointed Ash Lilani, managing partner of Saama Capital as an independent director.
Moneycontrol reported about this development on July 7.
The combined size of Paytm’s IPO, including both fresh issue and the offer for sale by selling shareholders, is likely to be in the range of $2.2 billion to $2.3 billion and the size could be increased later if required.
During the EGM scheduled on July 12, the stakeholders will also decide if founder and chief executive Vijay Shekhar Sharma can be declassified as the promoter as he does not own the requisite 20 percent stake as per Sebi norms to be a promoter.
