Vishal Garg's Better.com offers India employees option to leave, accepts 920 resignations

Better.com CEo Vishal made headlines after he laid off 900 employees over a Zoom call  last year and  sacked about 4,000 employees in March.

After two mass layoffs since December 2021, Vishal Garg's Better.com has in recent weeks offered its employees in India the option to leave voluntarily. About 920 resignations have already been accepted.

The digital-first homeownership company made headlines after Garg laid off 900 employees over a Zoom call just before Christmas last year.  In March, the company had sacked about 4,000 employees in the US and India, including pregnant women on Mother's Day.

According to a report by news agency IANS, Better.com offered "its workers in India the option to leave under a voluntary separation agreement".

In a statement, the company said that the uncertain mortgage market conditions created an exceedingly challenging operating environment for many in the industry.

Read more: Computer abruptly shut down: Better.com employees recount mass layoffs

Meanwhile, Better.com CEO Vishal Garg has acknowledged to employees that he "personally guaranteed" $750 million of the $1.5 billion cash infusion into Better.com by SoftBank.

It was Garg and not the company, who took responsibility for compensating the Japanese investment giant SoftBank for any losses, reported TechCrunch.

Last November the company had announced that "Aurora Acquisition Corp and SoftBank decided to amend the terms of their financing agreement to provide Better with half of the $1.5 billion they committed immediately instead of waiting until the deal closes".

A filing by Aurora said the "Better Founder and CEO in his personal capacity has agreed to enter into a side letter with SoftBank, according to which he may be liable for realised losses or receive payments in certain circumstances from SoftBank in connection with the post-closing convertible notes".

Later, Garg acknowledged personal responsibility for the $750 million cash infusion.

"I am fully committed with everything I own and will ever own. Five years from now, when that SoftBank $750 million loan comes due around my 50th birthday, it means I have nothing. Well, at least we will have given it a real shot... this is true. I did personally guarantee three quarters of a billion dollars and I'm personally liable for it," he said in an email to the employees.

(With inputs from IANS)