Nothing to hide: Zomato CEO on relationship between chief people officer and Blinkit founder

Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal

After drawing ire from stakeholders for not disclosing that Blinkit co-founder Albinder Dhindsa and Zomato chief people officer Akriti Chopra are married, the food delivery company said on August 1 that there was nothing to hide about it and due process was followed during the transaction.

Zomato announced the acquisition of quick commerce company Blinkit in a $570 million deal in June which has now received shareholder approval as well.

"The relationship between Albinder and Akriti/ I is public and already known - there was nothing to hide there. The board was aware of it and all parties, including Akriti herself, made sure that she was never involved in any discussions or decisions with respect to the transaction," said the Zomato CEO.

"This transaction also had no overlap with her role as Chief People Officer at Zomato. We also took an independent opinion from Saraf & Partners on there being no related party transaction under applicable law," he added.

Goyal also highlighted that the valuation at which Blinkit was acquired in the deal was also one of the concerns raised by stakeholders.

On the matter, he said, "Rigorous and detailed due diligence, deliberations, and negotiations were done before agreeing to the terms of the transaction (like any other company would do for a large and important transaction). We had multiple external advisors who helped us with various aspects of the transaction, including valuation which was done by EY, and we took an independent fairness opinion from Morgan Stanley."

"We negotiated hard on valuation but at the same time, had no intention to be opportunistic since it is important to be fair to the team on the other side who is going to build this business going forward," he added.

Meanwhile, Moneycontrol reported earlier today that Goyal has mooted a new identity and mission for the food delivery company, even as its stock witnessed massive sell-off pressure last week.

Goyal's note, posted on the company's Slack channel, was written last week after shareholders approved its acquisition of Blinkit, a grocery delivery startup that was previously called Grofers.

"Now that the Zomato Blinkit deal is approved, we have three companies- Zomato, Blinkit, and Hyperpure - in the order of business size/impact. In addition to these three, we also have Feeding India. We are now at a stage of life where we are maturing from running (more or less) a single business to running multiple large companies," Goyal wrote in the message, which Moneycontrol has viewed.

In its first quarter result announcement on August 1, Zomato said its food delivery segment has hit break even with an adjusted EBITDA of 0. It had registered an adjusted EBITDA loss of Rs 80 crore in the March quarter and a loss of Rs 30 crore in the year-ago period in this segment.

However, at the company level, it registered an adjusted EBITDA loss of Rs 150 crore in the June quarter (Q1). Adjusted EBITDA is defined by the company as EBITDA without accounting for ESOP (employee stock option) costs.