Fintech start-up BharatPe paid Rs 1.69 crore to its Co-founder and managing director Ashneer Grover as salary in FY22, reported MoneyControl. The report cites the company’s financial statement filed with the Registrar of Company (RoC) saying that BharatPe paid Rs 63 lakhs to its former head of control Madhuri Jain Grover, who is also Ashneer’s wife.
BharatPe is currently in a legal battle with Ashneer Grover. They have alleged that Ashneer and his family siphoned off company funds worth Rs 88.6 crore.
On the other hand, Grover has raised concerns over Rs 315 crore of ESOPs (Employee Stock Ownership Plans) being granted to BharatPe’s top brass in FY22. He has alleged that most of the ESOPs were allotted to four key managerial personnel of the company – Chairman Rajnish Kumar, founder Shashvat Nakrani, former CEO Suhail Sameer, and general counsel Sumeet Singh.
The report also says that BhartPe’s former CEO Suhail Sameer was paid Rs 2.1 crore in FY22. Rajnish Kumar, BharatPe Chairman, received Rs 21.4 lakhs and BharatPe board member Shashvat Nakrani got Rs 29.8 lakhs.
These numbers, however, do not take into account stock payments by the company to these individuals. The report said, the company incurred Rs 70 crore worth of stock-based payment expenses in FY22, up 218 per cent compared to last fiscal year.
The company financials also showed that BharatPe suffered losses worth Rs 5,610.7 crore in FY22, due to a one-time non-cash expense related to a change in the fair value of compulsory convertible preference shares (CCPS). BharatPe had posted a net loss of Rs 1,619.2 crore in FY21.
The company’s adjusted loss increased 2.2 times to Rs 828.2 crore in FY22 from Rs 227.3 crore in the prior fiscal year. This growth was not due to the CCPS expense. The company had stated earlier this month that the CCPS-related item is a “one-off” and won’t be present starting in 2019 because we have switched the compulsorily convertible preference shares from liability to equity.
The company’s operational revenue grow by 3.8 times to Rs 456.8 crore from Rs 119 crore in FY21 as a result of a sharp increase in payments for loan disbursals.