Freshworks' Girish Mathrubootham sells $40 million worth of shares

Girish Mathrubootham

Girish Mathrubootham the cofounder and executive chairman of Nasdaq-listed SaaS firm  Freshworks, has sold nearly 2.5 million shares of the company's Class A common stock, valued at approximately $39.6 million, showed the firm's SEC Filings filed on December 20.

The sales occurred across multiple transactions this week at an average price range of $15.33 to $16.50 per share.

The stock sales come amid significant recent developments at the Nasdaq-listed SaaS firm.

In February of 2024, Freshworks’ board of directors recently canceled the CEO Performance Award of six million stock units allotted to Mathrubootham in 2022, citing shifts in performance targets driven by challenging macroeconomic conditions. However, Mathrubootham was entitled to a new annual long-term equity incentive award with a fair value of $19 million. During the same time, Mathrubootham had divested shares amounting to $9.6 million.

In May, in a major management realignment Girish Mathrubootham, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Nasdaq-listed Freshworks, became the company's executive chairman while Dennis Woodside was named his replacement.

The company has also been navigating a period of transformation towards efficiency, which includes workforce layoffs and share buyback initiatives, as it adapts to a dynamic global business environment.

Freshworks recently made headlines by simultaneously laying off 660 of its employees globally and announcing a $400 million share buyback programme.

Freshworks reported a 22 percent growth in revenue to $186 million in its third-quarter financials on November 7. The firm’s net loss went down to $25.9 million in Q3 as against $31.03 million during the same quarter last year.The firm has increased its revenue guidance forecasts to be between $713.6 million and $716.6 million for the full year of 2024, up from its prior expectations of $707 million to $713 million.