1.28 Cr Shares Are Allotted by Swiggy Under the ESOP Scheme

The board of Swiggy, a well-known foodtech company, has authorised the distribution of 1.28 Cr equity shares through its employee stock option plan (ESOP). The Nomination and Remuneration Committee authorised the distribution of 12,896,462 equity shares under the Swiggy Employee Stock Option Plan 2024 to its qualified workers, according to the company's regulatory filing dated April 21. The face value of the shares is INR 1, and the exercise price for the shares that were allotted was also INR 1 per share. Swiggy recently made an expansion investment of INR 1,000 crore in Scootsy Logistics, a subsidiary. In the prior quarter, 42% of Swiggy's total revenue came from Scootsy Logistics. Swiggy has not yet submitted its Q4 FY25 financial statements for the final quarter of the previous fiscal year. The company reported a 31% year-over-year increase to INR 3,993 crore in Q3 FY25 from INR 3,049 crore in Q3 FY24. Swiggy's losses increased 39.2% to INR 799 crore during the same time period as a result of its growth-orientated strategy.

In Jan, Swiggy Allocated 2.61 Crore Shares to Employees

On January 23, Swiggy said that 2.61 crore shares had been distributed under various employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) schemes. Under the Swiggy ESOP Plan 2015 & Swiggy ESOP Plan 2021, Swiggy announced that it had authorised the distribution of 2,61,93,411 equity shares of the company in response to eligible workers exercising their stock options. According to the document, this raised Swiggy's paid-up equity share capital from INR 2.23 crore to INR 2.26 crore.

Trends in ESOP

Esop allocation, which was first popularised by IT services giants like Infosys, is particularly common in consumer online businesses. Before going public, these companies usually provide founders and top management more stock options as incentives. However, there may be a number of unintended consequences from the opportunity to create wealth for a larger group of workers.

More firms are now offering ESOPs to all employees, not only senior management, according to a survey done by Saison Capital, XA Network, and Carta. Compared to one in four in 2021, one in three firms now provide these plans to all employees.

Furthermore, the median ESOP pool size grew from 9% in 2021 to 12.6% in 2024, and 90% of founders now talk about ESOPs with candidates during interviews or job offers, up from 75% in 2021. Additionally, the reasons for providing ESOPs have changed; in 2024, 40% of founders cited cost reductions, up from 28% in 2021.