Oyo allots ESOPs worth $20 Mn to former and existing staffs

Budget hospitality chain Oyo has been in the headlines for the past six months for layoffs, furlough, pay cut, and the standoff with hoteliers due to the covid19 pandemic. Amidst facing disruptions in operations across 80 countries, there is some positive news for probably hundreds of former and existing employees in the company.

The Softbank-backed firm has allotted ESOP worth $20 million to the employee’s welfare trust. It passed a resolution to approve allotment of 388 equity under the company’s ESOP 2018 plan. 

These shares are allotted to Dinesh Ramamurthi, Chief of Human Resources at the company, and also the trustee of Oravel Stays Employee Welfare Trust on behalf of employees who sent the exercise notices for vested options.

The fresh allotment is worth nearly $20.42 million in total as per Oyo’s valuation in the last round. The company had issued shares to SoftBank Venture Fund India Holdings at the issue price of $52,643.22 per share in February. 

In March, the Ritesh Agarwal-led firm had announced that it would offer 600 employees the option to liquidate their stock options worth around Rs 200 crore. The allotment seems to be part of the company’s announcement in late 2018 to add 2,000 more stock options to its ESOPs pool. 

While we don’t know the exact number of employees and their roles who are part of this allotment, the allotment is likely to up the confidence of its workforce. 

Oyo becomes the fifth firm to reward employees in one form or another in the recent past. Earlier this month Paytm had allotted stock worth around $2 million to a clutch of former and existing employees to vest and Unacademy expanded its ESOPs pool to $42 million. 

According to Fintrackr, Ola, Swiggy, Paytm and Unacademy had added ESPOs to their existing scheme in 2020. Ola topped up its pool by adding $46 million worth stocks in February this year while Swiggy expanded its ESOPs scheme to $211.8 million by adding $46 million valued shares in April.