One97 Communications, which owns brand Paytm, has elevated at least four executives to the position of chief business officer (CBO) of its various verticals, ahead of its much-awaited November-listing.
The names include founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma's brother Ajay Shekhar Sharma, Ripunjai Gaur, and Abhay Sharma, who have been elevated to CBO over the last month from senior vice president positions, according to their Linkedin profile. A CBO is equivalent to a business head of a certain vertical within Paytm.
On late Wednesday evening, the above individuals updated their Linkedin profiles. While Gaur will assume the role of CBO of Paytm's offline payment business; Abhay Sharma will look after the company's bill payments business. Ajay Shekhar Sharma will be assuming the CBO role of the Paytm's marketing cloud business.
A Paytm spokesperson declined to comment on the development.
Recently, as a run up to its initial public offering (IPO), Paytm has also allotted shares to 166 former and current employees ahead of its planned public listing, according to the company’s filings with the ministry of corporate affairs. More than 1.01 million shares have been allotted to these individuals, the filings showed.
Paytm was in talks with five lenders to help employees borrow money to exercise their stock options before the public listing. In July, Mint reported that two senior executives including president at Paytm, Amit Nayyar, who was handing the company’s financial services division; and chief human resources officer Rohit Thakur had called it quits. While Thakur had exited the company by July, Nayyar had filed his resignation in June, this year.
In July, OCL sought the markets regulator’s approval for its ₹16,600 crore initial public offering that is poised to become the country’s biggest initial share sale. As part of the IPO, India’s second-most valuable startup will sell new shares worth ₹8,300 crore, Paytm said in its draft share sale documents. Existing shareholders will sell stocks worth another ₹8,300 crore through the IPO.
Paytm is currently awaiting approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India for its draft prospectus. It is expected to list on the Indian exchanges by November.