Vijay Shekhar Sharma | Business Upturn

News reports on SEBI notice are not new and relevant disclosures are made: Paytm

Markets Desk — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 12:20:07 +0000

Paytm (One97 Communications) today was in focus after a Moneycontrol report stated that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has issued show-cause notices to Sharma and other board members regarding alleged misrepresentation of facts during the company’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) in November 2021. The notices are particularly focused on Sharma’s compliance with promoter classification norms, which further raised concerns among investors.

However, in an exchange filing today, August 26, the company said that the the reports are not about a new development and that the company had already made relevant disclosures on the matter. “Company had already made relevant disclosures on this matter in its financial results for the quarter and year ended March 31, 2024, as well as the quarter ended June 30, 2024. The Company is in regular communication with the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and making necessary representations regarding this matter. Accordingly, there is no impact on the financial results for previous quarters ended June 30, 2024, and March 31, 2024, respectively,” Paytm said in an exchange filing.

Shares of Paytm slipped over 5% in trade following the news reports and ended at Rs 530.40 on the NSE, down 4.4%.

Paytm share price falls over 5% following SEBI’s show cause notice to Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma

News Desk — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 08:47:45 +0000

Shares of One97 Communications Ltd., the parent company of Paytm, fell over 5% today amid growing regulatory scrutiny following a show-cause notice issued to founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma.

Paytm share performance today:

As of 2:14 PM, Paytm’s stock was trading at ₹524.00, down ₹30.85 or 5.56% from the previous close. The day’s trading saw significant volatility:

Open: ₹559.80
High: ₹565.45
Low: ₹505.55
Previous Close: ₹554.85
Average Price: ₹530.55

The decline in Paytm’s share price comes after a Moneycontrol report revealed that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has issued show-cause notices to Sharma and other board members regarding alleged misrepresentation of facts during the company’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) in November 2021. The notices are particularly focused on Sharma’s compliance with promoter classification norms, which have raised concerns among investors.

This regulatory action follows a series of challenges for Paytm, particularly related to its banking arm, Paytm Payments Bank, which has faced restrictions from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) due to persistent non-compliance issues. The RBI’s earlier directives had already impacted Paytm’s operations, leading to a significant decline in its market capitalization.

Paytm’s shares have been under pressure for some time, having fallen significantly since their IPO price of ₹2,150. The company’s stock hit an all-time low of ₹310 earlier this year, and despite recent attempts to recover, the ongoing regulatory challenges continue to weigh heavily on investor sentiment.

As the situation develops, market participants will be closely monitoring Paytm’s response to the show-cause notice and any potential implications for the company’s operations and financial performance.

Working with regulator to address concerns, decision to impact EBITDA by upto Rs 500 crore: Paytm

Markets Desk — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 23:11:31 +0000

Paytm (One97 Communications) in a press release has stated that Paytm Payments Bank is taking immediate steps to comply with the RBI directions and is working with the regulator to address their concerns as soon as possible.

The statement comes in hours after the Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday evening barred Paytm Payments Bank to accept any further deposits, credit facilities and to further not involve in any banking related activities.

Paytm in its statement further says that they will now completely move to work with other banks and not Paytm Payments Bank for banking related activities. “We now will accelerate the plans and completely move to other bank partners. Going forward, OCL will be working only with other banks, and not with Paytm Payments Bank Limited. The next phase of OCL’s journey is to continue to expand its payments and financial services business, only in partnerships with other banks,” the company said in an exchange filing.

Paytm has said that this decision by the RBI will impact their EBITDA annually by Rs 300-500 crore. “Depending on the nature of the resolution, the Company expects this action to have a worst case impact of Rs 300 to 500 crores on its annual EBITDA going forward. However, the Company expects to continue on its trajectory to improve its profitability,” said Paytm.

On the issue of termination of nodal account of One97 Communications and Paytm Payments Services Limited, they will move the nodal to other banks during this period, the company clarified.

Clearing the market rumours about Paytm’s founder Vijay S Sharma’s, the company says, “Our founder has reconfirmed to us that he has not taken any margin loans, or otherwise pledged any shares that are directly or indirectly owned by him.”

Paytm CEO reports possible EBITDA breakeven in 1.5 years to shareholders

Aayush Agarwal — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 07:18:30 +0000

Paytm is an Indian multinational financial technology company specializing in digital payment system, e-commerce and financial services. Vijay Shekhar Sharma is its founder and chief executive officer. He was ranked as India’s youngest billionaire in 2017 by Forbes with a whooping net worth of $1.3 billion.

Paytm shares dropped drastically recently due to alleged uncertain and volatile market conditions for high growth stocks.

However, today CEO Vijay Sharma wrote to his shareholders regarding updates on the operating performances and overall exclusive productivity of the company. One97 Communications is an Indian e-commerce and fintech company, which also runs Paytm issued a directive of results on the same.

The communication adhered to the operating performance for the 4th Quarter of Fiscal year 2022.

He stated statistically, “Our team’s phenomenal execution is evident in acceleration of monthly transacting users to over 70 million. Adoption of 2.9 million devices by our merchants. And disbursement of over 6.5 million loans per quarter through our platform.”

These were clear indications made promising continuous productivity and strategic implementation to meet long term shareholder objectives.

EBITDA Breakeven expectations

With better performance, the billionaire also issued estimated optics. ” I believe we should be operating EBITDA breakeven in next 6 quarters (i.e. EBITDA before ESOP cost, and by the quarter ending September 2023), well ahead of estimates by most analysts. Importantly, we are going to achieve this
without compromising any of our growth plans. Against the backdrop of volatile market conditions for high growth stocks globally. Our shares are down significantly from the IPO price. Rest assured, the entire Paytm team is committed to build a large, profitable company and to create long-term shareholder value. Aligned with this, my stock grants will be vested to me only when our market cap has
crossed the IPO level on a sustained basis. I am proud of the talent that we have in our company, and our culture of being ambitious and entrepreneurial. We continue to expand our team with great talent from both the technology and finance industries. We remain grateful for the support of our shareholders.”

The CEO also reported new trends of increase in lending. He made it evident that in cooperation to RBI regulations a surge in public lending was observed. Thus, opening the potential for new revenue generation channels.

The number of loans disbursed through their platform grew approximately by 374% YoY. Moreover, to 6.5 million loans in the Q4 of FY 2022. While the value of loans disbursed was around INR 3,553 Crores (YoY growth of 417%).

Despite the Pandemic, and induced saving at the start of FY 2020, Paytm saw its offline payments business accelerate with 0.9 million devices deployed in this quarter. Total number of devices deployed have grown to 2.9 million.

Further statistics of the operations as well as the revenue channels were disclosed which were responsible for such massive growth. This was definitely enough to settle the stakeholder ship at risk amid dropping share prices. However, this performance is highly inclusive of targeted estimates based on analysis of current real time data. The CEO, also disclosed in his notice that as much as they look forward to achieving these milestones. They are expected and not achieved. While markets remain uncertain and volatile, Paytm remains midway to fight for growth.

SoftBank to resign from board of Paytm, Policybazaar

Mymun Malik — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 09:32:12 +0000

Japanese Investment behemoth SoftBank will exit the boards of PolicyBazaar and Paytm. It is SoftBank’s usual strategy of leaving the boards of its companies that go public, said an exclusive report from Moneycontrol.

Munish Varma is SoftBank’s managing partner and he is stepping down from the Paytm and PolicyBazaar’s board.

Although the position will be exited, however, SoftBank will continue to hold stakes in both the companies and will continue to invest in them going forward.

Yashish Dahiya along with Alok Bansal and Avaneesh Nirja had incepted PolicyBazaar way back in 2008. PolicyBazaar.com was an online portal that helped people buy the right insurance policy. And Vijay Shekhar Sharma started the story of Paytm in 2010 which helped customers pay digitally for a seamless online transaction. Under its umbrella, it has Paytm and Paytm Payments Bank.

To date, close to $10 billion have been injected into Indian tech companies by SoftBank. Just recently in 2021 both Paytm and PolicyBazaar, SoftBank’s impressive portfolio companies have gone public.

This decision follows the stocks hitting hard in the last few months of both Paytm and PolicyBazaar.

In a consecutive set of events, Paytm Payments Bank has been denied access to add new customers to their servers as Vijay Shekhar Sharma is being held for violating the Storage of Payment System Data Law.

RBI in its routine annual scrutiny found that the Paytm Payments Bank servers were trading sensitive information with Chinese entities. These Chinese entities happen to have an indirect share in the company.

In a lash out on Twitter, Paytm Payments Bank tweeted, “It’s just a false alarm that Bloomberg has reported of any such trade-off with Chinese firms. We are very proud to be a domestic bank and we fully comply with RBI’s directives on data localization. The complete bank’s data is stationed inside India.”

As soon as RBI slapped a ban, the parent company of Paytm – One97 Communications’ share price came tumbling down, to a record dip on INR 614.80 at 1.30 pm on Tuesday

(WITH SIGNIFICANT INPUTS FROM MONEYCONTROL)

Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma arrested for ramming into DCP’s car, later granted bail

Keertiman Upadhyay — Sun, 13 Mar 2022 05:41:55 +0000

On Sunday, March 13, Paytm’s founder & CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma was arrested & later released on bail for ramming his car into DCP’s car in February, as reported by ANI.

Vijay hit the car of the district commissioner of police of South Delhi. He was driving a Jaguar Land Rover & the incident took place outside The Mother’s International School on Aurobindo Marg on February 22.

Sharma was arrested under IPC Section 279 for rash or negligent driving. The FIR was filed by constable Deepak Kumar, who was during the DCP’s car then. Later the Paytm boss was released on bail.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma founded Paytm in the year 2011. In 2017 Vijay was ranked as the youngest billionaire by Forbes with a net worth of $1.3 billion. Sharma holds a 9.1% stake or 60 million shares in Paytm.

Paytm may enter into the Indian cryptocurrency arena

Ayisha Farah — Fri, 26 Nov 2021 16:25:40 +0000

Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma said “The answer is 100 percent Yes. We would be 100%,” when he was asked in an interview with Money Control whether the digital payment giant, who suffered an underwhelming initial public offer (IPO) response earlier this month, will be joining the Indian cryptocurrency arena.

Optimistic about the cryptocurrency area, he stated that the technology is essentially deeply-rooted in cryptography, and after a few years, it would be mainstream. Sharma also prompted the government to make a firm, clear stance on cryptocurrency to pass the continuous uncertainty.

The Indian cryptocurrency ecosystem was launched in a stir with the government declaring the possible initiation of “The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021” in the parliament’s upcoming winter session, with the aim “to prohibit all private cryptocurrencies in India, however, it allows for certain exceptions to promote the underlying technology of cryptocurrency and its uses.”

According to media reports, the Bill will also plan to exit their private cryptocurrency shares within a stipulated period. At the same time, some in the market think that a complete blanket prohibition is questionable and advocate for a more controlled strategy, incorporating cryptocurrency in a similar category as other assets like gold, bonds, etc.

Sharma follows the bandwagon with other crypto enthusiasts like Ashish Singhal, Founder and CEO of crypto exchange CoinSwitch Kuber who considers that cryptocurrencies allow India to turn into a net exporter from a net importer of technology.

“We cannot be the late movers in accepting crypto. We already missed the first bus of Internet 1.0. Today, 70 per cent of our revenues go to US-based tech giants. We are a net importer of technology. We import over $10 billion of this technology every year, and it is expected to grow to $45-30 billion over the next 3-4 years.” Singhal said.

India’s Youngest Billionaire puts his money down for OLA Electric scooters

Nishita Sharma — Fri, 23 Jul 2021 11:20:20 +0000

Ola Scooter has been trending over the top most rankings of the auto world. The bookings has been started for the upcoming electric two-wheeler is opened from July 15. Since then, it has seen widespread interest, recording more than one lakh registrations within the first couple of days. But in the current talks it is seen through the social media post by one of the youngest billionaires has shown interest in taking the Ola Scooter for a spin.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and CEO of digital transaction platform Paytm, shared a tweet showing the registration acknowledgement page for Ola Scooter, captioned, “Done”.

Sharma posted the tweet in the reply section of a tweet by Ola co-founder Bhavish Aggarwal showcasing the 10 colour options for Ola Scooter and asking interested buyers to register their unit

Done ✅ https://t.co/lDMNMKs95b pic.twitter.com/SFMhAh3ecq

— Vijay Shekhar Sharma (@vijayshekhar) July 22, 2021

Ola Scooters as posted is seen as it is likely to come in several variants and colors. The company has filings which shows that the scooter will be called Series S. Ola Electric has also filed patents for two more names – S1 and S1 Pro, which could be additional trims of the scooter.

Ola Scooter is to be based on Etergo AppScooter viz is powered by a swappable high-energy-density battery. This claims to have a range of 240 km on a single charge, but it easily lasts 150 km in real-world conditions. The battery could be charged 0-50 per cent within 18 minutes and a full charge could need two and a half hours. On a normal home outlet, the scooter could take over five hours to recharge.

The Ola Scooter is likely to run on a motor ranging between 3 Kw and 6 Kw, with top speed of 90 kmph and peak torque of 50 Nm.

Paytm gets shareholders approval to raise Rs 12,000 crore ahead of IPO

Bhomik Mathur — Mon, 12 Jul 2021 08:48:27 +0000

Paytm, on Monday, cleared another hurdle on its way to becoming a public company with its shareholders allowing the fintech company to raise Rs 12,000 crore through a fresh issue of shares at an extraordinary general meeting (EGM). The company’s initial public offering(IPO) will also include an offer for sale, wherein the existing investors would sell their shares, taking the value of the issue to Rs 16,000 crore.

Among other decisions, Paytm’s founder and CEO, Vijay Shekhar Sharma has been allowed to be declassified as the company’s promoter, as he doesn’t own the requisite 20% of shares in Paytm. The moves paves way for the fintech firm to become a professionally managed company(PMC). According to market regulator SEBI’s rules, no single entity must possess a stake higher than 25% in a PMC. However, Sharma will remain the company’s Chairman, CEO, and MD.

Currently, some of Paytm’s biggest shareholders are-

Alibaba and Ant Group(38%)
SoftBank(18.73%)
Elevation Capital(17.65%)
Vijay Shekhar Sharma(14.61%)

Paytm’s IPO is expected to be one of the largest in the Indian stock markets and the company is in the process of filing its Draft Red herring Prospectus for the same. At the EGM, shareholders also gave their nod to the changes proposed in the Employee Stock Options Plan(ESOP) and the articles of association.

Meanwhile, Paytm has remained in limelight over the past few days due to several high-profile exits from the company ahead of its IPO. The company’s president Amit Nayyar, chief human resources (HR) officer Rohit Thakur and three vice presidents are understood to have tendered their resignation.

Paytm founder tweets photo of India’s first QR-enabled store

Chittesh Dalmia — Fri, 02 Oct 2020 08:41:31 +0000

Paytm Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma on Thursday shared a photo of India’s first QR code-enabled store on Twitter. It hailed the development as the “humble beginning” that sparked a digital revolution.

Digital Wallet provider, Paytm had introduced QR code-based payment system in 2015. It was a huge hit with the solution powering more than five million merchants across the country by 2017 itself. The QR code payment system can be used by the shopkeepers to accept digital payments.

The One97 startup had stated that within a year of launch of its QR code-based payments, it already contributes around 65 percent of overall transactions on its platform.

Mr Vijay Sharma’s tweet shows the store that, in September 2015, it became India’s first store to accept QR code-based payments. Mr Sharma wrote: “Every revolution has a humble beginning.”

A picture of the store was also shared by Aditya Kumar, Senior Vice President, which shows the shop named “Haryana Store”, selling “cosmetics, confectionery, groceries etc”.