Shareholders of One97 Communications have approved the reappointment of Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma as managing director and chief executive officer of the firm, despite calls for his ouster.
All seven resolutions passed by the Paytm board, including the reinstatement of Madhur Deora as the executive director, president and group chief financial officer, the inclusion of Elevation Capital’s managing partner Ravi Adusumalli as a board member, and the decision on Sharma’s and Deora’s remunerations were approved by the shareholders.
Reappointments of Sharma and Deora received approval from 99.67% and 99.82% of the voting shareholders, respectively. Despite dissent from public institutional shareholders, resolutions on the remuneration packages for Sharma and Deora was passed with the backing of long-term investors Alibaba, Elevation Capital and Softbank Group.
According to the exchange notification filed by Paytm on Sunday, though 75.6% of public institutional shareholders, representing nearly 26 million shares, were against
Sharma’s remuneration, it amounted to only 5.52% of the voting against the resolution, taking into consideration retail investors and public non-institutional investors such as Paytm’s private equity backers.
Sharma’s package includes a ₹796 crore in employee stock options passed in FY22, which will be vested over the next five years. At its first post-IPO annual general meeting Friday, Sharma said his Esops will not be vested till Paytm’s shares hit the issue price of ₹2,150.