Netcore solutions, a marketing-focused SaaS upstart from Mumbai, has announced a rather rare, ESOP buyback exercise for its employees.
Employees were given the opportunity to en-cash a major portion of their stock options. Netcore claims that the buyback saw a return of upto 250 times for employees, depending on the price at which they were given the options. In a parallel exercise, Netcore’s holding company also completed a buyback scheme of shares held by current and ex-employees.
This extremely rare buyback scheme, particularly in the SaaS space, has delivered one of the largest returns ever seen in the history of private companies in India.
Talking about the company’s buyback exercise and how it was able to achieve the same, Kalpit Jain, Group CEO for Netcore, said, “Netcore has built a unique growth model centred around 3 elements: profitable growth, long-term focus, and extreme employee-centricity. These three aspects have enabled us to create a high-growth, high-performance organisation which has consistently delivered exceptional value to all our stakeholders, including our employees. “
Netcore as a company, has been profitable for over 10 years now, highlighting once again that profitability can be achieved by tech companies if business fundamentals remain strong. According to Jain, the company is 25% owned by employees. He adds, “While every company has to be customer-centric to thrive, there are few that are employee-centric at this scale – both in terms of ownership in the company and delivering wealth creation.”
