NEW DELHI, April 16 – Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the founder and chief executive of Indian fintech firm One97 Communications, has voluntarily surrendered 21 million employee stock options (ESOPs) valued at approximately ₹1,800 crore ($216 million), the company said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday.
The ESOPs were originally granted to Sharma at the time of One97’s listing and will now be returned to the company’s stock option pool under its 2019 ESOP scheme. “Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Chairman, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Company, has voluntarily forgone all 2,10,00,000 ESOPs granted to him… with immediate effect,” One97 said in the filing to the stock exchanges.
The move, based on Paytm’s Tuesday closing price of ₹864.5 per share, equates to a valuation of ₹1,815.45 crore ($216 million). Sharma’s decision comes as Paytm navigates a challenging regulatory environment and seeks to reinforce governance and investor confidence.
The company said the decision would result in a one-time, non-cash ESOP expense of ₹492 crore in the fourth quarter of the 2025 financial year. It also noted that the voluntary surrender would reduce stock-based compensation expenses in future reporting periods.
ESOP costs are recorded as notional expenses under prevailing accounting standards and do not involve immediate cash outflows. Sharma, who founded Paytm in 2010, has been at the helm through its rise as a leading digital payments platform in India. The company went public in 2021 in one of the country’s most high-profile tech IPOs.
