Paytm: Sharma optimistic, cites Elon Musk for Tesla-like return!
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: He launched Pay Through Mobile (Paytm) in 2010, gradually specializing in digital payment systems, e-commerce, and finance. Last week, its IPO, India’s biggest yet to raise nearly USD 2.5 billion (Rs.18,000 crore), flopped as its investors witnessed quick erosion in their potential wealth.
But Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the 43-year-old Founder-CEO of One97 Communications Ltd, the parent company of Paytm, is optimistic. He compared his company to the USA’s Tesla Inc. which saw a similar rollercoaster ride on the stock markets, before becoming the world’s most valuable firm.
By likening Paytm with Tesla Inc, Sharma, by extension drew parallels between himself and Elon Musk, the world’s richest man at a personal fortune of nearly USD 300 billion, after his Indian digital payments start-up suffered a brutal first-day plunge after its IPO.
In a four-hour-long town hall to rally Paytm employees who watched the company’s stock plummet 27 percent on Thursday last week, he encouraged them to look past the initial stumble and to focus on the long-term opportunities for bringing digital payments to India’s fast-growing internet population, according to the media reports.
Sharma, who had previously tweeted his admiration for Musk and his purchase of a Tesla vehicle, reminded Paytm employees that the electric vehicle maker’s stock used to be one of the most-shorted in the world.
But Tesla struggled to become one of the most recognized brands globally and the most valuable automaker in the world, he said.
Paytm’s share prices tumbled again on Monday, the first trading day after the three-day holiday weekend. Its shares were down another 17 percent, leaving them about 40 percent below the IPO offering price of Rs. 2,150, on a day the Sensex tumbled 1,170 points and Niffy slipped below 17,450.
In July 2020, when Tesla overtook Toyota Motor Corp. to become the world’s most valuable automaker, Sharma had praised Musk thus: “After so many naysayers and people attempting to pull @elonmusk down, he has proven what he is made of!” signing off with the Hindi aphorism: “One day, my time too will come.”
But Tesla shares had actually risen 41 percent on the first day after its IPO in 2010. They later fell to less than USD 4 each and have since surged to give the company a market value of more than USD 1 trillion.
