Paytm IPO makes 350 current and ex-employees millionaires

About 350 current and former employees of Paytm will each have a net worth of at least ₹1 crore after the country’s $2.5 billion IPO, according to a report.

Electronics engineer Siddharth Pandey will be among those who achieve millionaire status after the country’s biggest ever public issue, but he told Reuters that he had to overcome his father’s opposition to join the fintech firm eight years ago.

Pandey’s seven-year stint at Paytm left him with tens of thousands of shares. He declined to give details, but the shares were priced at ₹2,150 apiece on Friday.

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Pandey said he would be worth more than $1 million. “My dad was very demotivating. He said, ‘What is this Paytime?,’” Pandey said, referring to the time he joined Paytm in 2013.

“Now he [my father] is obviously very happy. He has just asked me to stay grounded,” said Pandey, who is from Uttar Pradesh, same as the founder of the company, Vijay Shekhar Sharma.

When Pandey joined Paytm, it was primarily a small payments company with fewer than 1,000 staff.

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Today the firm has more than 10,000 employees and offers a range of services from banking, shopping, movie and travel ticketing to gaming. To celebrate, Pandey says he took his father on a five-day luxury trip to Udaipur in September, spending roughly ₹4 lakh.

“Paytm has always been a generous paymaster. Vijay [Shekhar Sharma] has always wanted that people make money, they move up in life,” Pandey said.