Swiggy’s Sriharsha Majety, others in top deck get $200 million in ESOPs ahead of IPO

Sriharsha Majety, Group CEO, Swiggy

IPO-bound food-tech giant Swiggy has given employee stock ownership plan (ESOPs) worth $270 million (around Rs 2,240 crore) to its co-founder and group CEO Sriharsha Majety and other top executives ahead of the listing scheduled for later this year, the company’s updated draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) showed.

Other co-founders Nandan Reddy and Phani Kishan, food marketplace CEO Rohit Kapoor, Swiggy Instamart head Amitesh Jha, CFO Rahul Bothra, HR head Girish Menon and CTO Madhusudhan Rao were also awarded extra shares along with Majety as part of the programme, the filing showed.

Majety, whose ownership in Swiggy was at around 6.23 percent at the time of filing of the draft papers, has been awarded an additional 2.3 percent stake in the company, according to news website The Arc. Other top executives will also see their ownership in the company go up ahead of the IPO.

Once the company lists, it will lead to wealth creation for all top executives and reward them for scaling the company.

This move is not uncommon. In 2021, when Swiggy’s rival Zomato was preparing to go public, co-founder Deepinder Goyal was given an additional 4 percent stake in the company. Higher the stake, more the skin in the game which incentivises employees to outperform.

ALSO READ: Swiggy IPO: Good for the sector to have multiple players, says Zomato’s Deepinder Goyal

Swiggy planned a mega $1.25 billion (Rs 10,414 crore) IPO —Rs 3,750-crore fresh issue and Rs 6,664 crore through offer of sale (OFS).

The IPO, one of the biggest for a new-age company, is likely to get even larger. Swiggy’s shareholders have approved the resolution to increase the size of the primary issue from Rs 3,750 crore to Rs 5,000 crore at the Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) held on October 3, Moneycontrol had reported earlier.

The company has created a provision for a larger IPO and the size will be increased by Rs 1,250 crore if the company requires additional funds. To be sure, only the size of primary issue has been increased from Rs 3,750 crore to Rs 5,000 crore. The offer for sale (OFS) component remains unchanged at Rs 6,664 crore.

Moneycontrol reported on September 10 that Swiggy was planning to increase its IPO size. The Bengaluru-based company's public market debut is going to be one of the largest new-age IPOs where it is set to Rs 10,414 crore ($1.25 billion) or Rs 11,664 crore ($1.4 billion) in case of an increased IPO.