Gives a world class reason for his altruistic move.
AB Wire
NEW DELHI: It may not rank high in terms of a philanthropic move, but Rahul Yadav, chief executive officer of Housing.com, by gifting his entire personal shares worth Rs 150-200 crore (around $25-35 million dollars) to the 2,251 employees of the company, is bound to go down in the annals of global corporate history as one of the most remembered ones for his charity.
Yadav, an IIT Bombay alum, has had quite a bizarre tenure of late at the company, which he co-founded. He had quit on April 30, after an e-mail to the board which questioned embarrassingly the “intellectual abilities” of a group of investors in the company. What transpired thereafter remains a mystery, but Yadav apologized and withdrew his resignation on May 5.
With his bold move now, Yadav has become quite the corporate folk hero, and the reason he gave for his altruistic move was a world class one.
“I’m just 26 and it’s too early in life to get serious about money,” he was quoted as saying by the Business Standard.
A source close to the development said Yadav had neither discussed the shares’ giveaway with the board of directors nor intimated the investors about it.
Yadav added, “Housing was started because of two reasons: The house-hunting problem remains unsolved globally. Just the problem statement gives me a lot of kick and in each country, there are four-five players doing the same poor job and are still not able to solve the problem.”
He further rationalized: “We want to unify all and create a global giant for real estate, so that the one company can afford much higher level of R&D and technological innovation to push the category forward.”
Housing.com was founded by 12 graduates of Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Yadav holds four per cent stake in the company, others have between eight and 10 per cent.
Venture capitalists now hold nearly 70 per cent in the company, including Nexus Venture Partners, Helion Venture Partners, Falconedge, Haresh Chawla (former group chief executive of Network18 and Viacom18 Media) and Zishaan Hayath (co-founder of Chaupaati Bazaar, a phone commerce company).