Ant Group nominee Douglas Feagin resigns from Zomato's board

Ant Group’s nominee to Zomato's board, Douglas Feagin, has resigned as a non-executive, non-independent director of the company, a couple of months after Chinese fintech major sold shares in the food tech platform.

Ant is an affiliate company of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, which sold $200 million of shares in Zomato in November. It still holds around 10 percent stake in Zomato.

"Zomato’s accomplishments in the pursuit of developing the food delivery business in India and creating happier everyday lives for people have been impressive. In recognition of the company’s growth as a publicly
listed company and the maturity of the business, at the request of the nominating shareholder, I hereby resign from my position as a director on the Board of Directors of Zomato," the regulatory filing quoted Feagin as saying.

"I remain confident in Zomato’s management team and wish for their continued success," Feagin added.

Earlier this month, Feagin also resigned from Paytm's Board of Directors as a non-executive, non-independent director, a month after selling shares worth $125 million via block deal.

In 2018, Alibaba first invested $210 million in Zomato through Ant for nearly a 15 percent stake, which, over time, was raised to a little under 25 percent.

Feagin's resignation filing came just minutes after Zomato reported a bigger loss for the December quarter. The foodtech company reported a loss of Rs 347 crore for Oct-Dec against a loss of Rs 63 crore for the same period last year. The company, however, reported a 75 percent rise in revenue from a year earlier to Rs 1,948 crore.

Zomato also claimed to have achieved a positive EBITDA (earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortisation) for the month of January, excluding its Blinkit acquisition or the quick commerce business. Moreover, according to its regulatory filings, Zomato's adjusted EBITDA for food delivery business soared 10x to Rs 23 crore from Rs 2 crore in the September quarter.

Adjusted EBITDA is a metric that many tech companies use even as each one of them defines it differently. Typically, costs that are not considered operational for the business such as employee stock option expenses are kept out of it.