The company is an online platform which assists patients to fix appointments with doctors, digitize their health records and have online consultations. With a strength of around 2000 employees, the company manages over 40 million appointments in more than 50 cities in India , Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines and Brazil.

The promoters went ahead with raising funds from private equity at an early stage. It was evaluating an employee stock option Plan that would be an effective long term incentive for senior management and be instrumental in achieving future growth.

Challenges

Although the company had adopted best practices for its employees, this was the first time it had ever considered stock grants or equity linked Plan and had no past experience.

The dilution, exit route, employee coverage, quantum of options to each employee, pricing and even the management of the Plan, whether through a Trust or otherwise were decisions that would have implications on the effectiveness of the Plan.

Solutions

We spent generous time breaking down the corporate goals and constraints with the management. This was followed by scoping key talent and senior management employees based on their role in the company.  The team analyzed alternative equity instruments in the industry and benchmarked scheme parameters.  Option pricing and dilution impacts was optimized for stakeholders. The final scheme was designed with flexibility to cover situations in regard to making future grants. Exit routes were clearly prioritized, that the employees would have a clear idea at any given point about the benefit of liquidating their options.

Value delivered

ESOP Direct’s role as a partner in conceptualizing designing and implementing the ESOP program brought in a level of comfort to the management. The entire process moved without stumbling blocks and within timelines. This usually has direct and indirect cost implications to the client especially with a scale of operations such as this. ESOP Direct’s longstanding experience helped in making the process cost efficient. We were able to optimize the scheme in terms of dilution, liquidity, present and aniticipated, as well as employee retention.