Fintech and online payments platform Paytm has been gearing up for its Initial Public Offering (IPO) for quite some time, which is expected to be the biggest the Indian startup culture has ever seen. However, the company is in for a major shock, as five of its top executives, including President Amit Nayyar, have quit from their positions. Nayyar had been serving as the President for the past 20 months, and his departure (which is apparently due to personal reasons), comes barely a month after Chief Human Resource Officer Rohit Thakur, resigned from his job. He quit in the first week of June, after serving his notice period. Nayyar, on the other hand, is still serving his notice period.
The news was broken by ET, which cited three people who are in close contact with the developments.
Nayyar, a former exec at Goldman Sachs, had left his previous job to join Paytm in 2019, and was also serving as the Finanical Head at the startup, and had led the company into a number of new avenues, including lending, wealth management, insurance, and broking. He also happens to be a board member at each of the fintech giant’s five subsidiary labels, namely, Paytm Money, Paytm Insurtech, Paytm Insurance Broking, Paytm Financial Services, and Urja Money.
Nayyar’s resignation comes less than a week after Paytm underwent a shuffling in its board of directors. During the change, Douglas Lehman Feagin, who is the Senior Vice President at Ant Group, joined Paytm’s board, effectively replacing Jing Xiandong, the Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer at Ant Group, who had recently resigned from the board. Other resignees have been Alibaba Group’s Michael Yuen Jen Yao, and Berkshire Hathaway’s Todd Anthony Combs. Jaskaran Singh Kapani, Head of Marketing at the startup, stepped down earlier this year, in February.
The online payments giant is all set for its first IPO listing listing by the end of this year, which could rake in as much as $2.23 billion (or ₹16,600 crore). A Draft Red Herring Prospective (DRHP) will most likely be filed very soon with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi). By the end of the IPO, the firm could be seeing a valuation of around $24-30 billion.
