Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal has voluntarily waived his base salary of INR 3.5 Cr per annum till March 31, 2026. Goyal hasn’t taken the base salary since April 1, 2021.
Deepinder Goyal foregoes salary since 2021
As per the company’s filing for its INR 8,500 Cr qualified institutional placement (QIP), “… vide letters dated March 24, 2021 and April 1, 2024, addressed to our board, Deepinder Goyal has voluntarily waived his salary for a period starting from April 1, 2021 till March 31, 2026, and shall continue to discharge his roles and duties as managing director and chief executive officer during this period.”
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Besides his base salary, Goyal is entitled to a variable pay, which is at the discretion of the company’s board, and statutory benefits. The founder, who holds a 4.18% stake in Zomato, will also be entitled to a cash payment of INR 1.75 Cr within a month of cessation of employment.
Zomato’s QIP and expenses
Meanwhile, the company’s QIP opened on Monday (November 25) and they set a floor price of INR 265.91 per share for it. Zomato said it may offer a discount of up to 5% on the floor price.
The QIP issue is expected to see participation from qualified institutional investors in India, as well as Europe and the US. The bidders will feature alternate investment funds registered with SEBI, eligible FPIs, mutual funds registered with SEBI, venture capital (VC) funds registered with SEBI, foreign VC investors, among others.
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Further, the company plans to use the QIP funds for various initiatives, including setting up Blinkit’s dark stores and warehouses. Zomato has reserved INR 2,137 Cr for this purpose and proposes to open additional dark stores in order to scale up its existing network across cities as well as expand into new cities in India.
Reportedly, the company will also use INR 2,492 Cr for brand building and advertising initiatives. It plans to ramp up its ad expenses in the near future, expecting to deploy INR 2,492 Cr towards advertising activities on or before March 31, 2028.
Additionally, Zomato will invest INR 1,769 Cr to build its cloud infrastructure and tech capabilities. The rest of the funds will be reserved for general corporate purposes.
Zomato’s Qatar business closure
In a separate development, Zomato has informed about the closure of its operations in Qatar. The company’s step-down subsidiary, Zomato Internet LLC (ZIL), didn’t have active business operations and was under the process of liquidation since the time of its filing its red herring prospectus (RHP) in July 2021.
