Losses at India's biggest e-commerce player Flipkart more than doubled in its latest fiscal to ₹2,306 crores compared to previous year. But the fat payouts at the startup would suggest otherwise.
According to a Quartz report, between April 2015 and March 2016, the e-commerce player paid over ₹300 crores in staff remuneration, with six senior staff making in excess of ₹10 crores, and over 101 staff receiving payouts exceeding ₹1 crores.
Flipkart's Chief People Officer Mekin Maheshwari reportedly made ₹35.3 crores, while former CEO-Commerce Platform Mukesh Bansal was paid ₹21.8 crores. Its Chief Technology Officer, Amod Malviya made about ₹11.7 crores. A former senior vice president, Sameer Nigam, and vice president each made about ₹17.7 and ₹10.1 crores respectively.
These payouts included liquidated employee stock options, salary, provident fund, and other allowances, the report said.
Late last year, a Morgan Stanley mutual fund, revised down the company's valuation by a whopping 38 per cent to $5.54 billion, in what was its fourth markdown by the fund in nine months. Flipkart is said to be in the market to raise up to $1 billion from investors. It faces tough competition from global e-commerce giant Amazon that is increasing investments in India.
At the time of its last round of funding in mid-2015, Flipkart was valued at $15.5 billion. For its most recent fiscal, Flipkart posted revenues of ₹1,952 crores, up about 153 per cent over from the previous year.