Zomato shares fall 4% as co-founder, CTO Gunjan Patidar resigns

Shares of Zomato fell over 4 per cent in Tuesday's trade after the company said its co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Gunjan Patidar, has tendered his resignation.

Zomato said Patidar was not designated as key managerial personnel under the Companies Act, 2013 and the SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015 and that the disclosure to stock exchanges was made voluntarily.

Patidar was one of the first few employees of Zomato, who built the core tech systems for the company.

"Over the last ten plus years, he also nurtured a stellar tech leadership team that is capable of taking on the mantle of leading the tech function going forward. His contribution to building Zomato has been invaluable," Zomato said in a BSE filing.

Tracking the development, the scrip fell 4.31 per cent to hit a low of Rs 57.65 on BSE.

Meanwhile, Emkay Global has come out with its IT earnings preview. It sees Zomato to report a loss of Rs Rs 320.50 crore in December quarter, which would be higher than September quarter's Rs 250.80 crore but less than Rs 378.90 crore in the year-ago quarter. Sales are seen jumping 65 per cent YoY to Rs 1,834.80 crore from Rs 1,112 crore.

"The food delivery business is likely to see growth moderation due to weakness in consumer spending and impact of discontinued Zomato Pro membership program. Revenue growth is expected to be in double digits QoQ on account of full-quarter integration of Blinkit and continued momentum in Hyperpure business. EBITDA loss is expected to widen due to full-quarter integration of Blinkit, although the food delivery segment’s profit is likely to improve," it said,

Emkay said investors may watch for growth trends across MTU, GOV, AOV, transaction frequency, contribution margin in the food delivery business, particularly considering weakness in consumer discretionary spending. Investors, it said, may also look at Blinkit business’ key operating parameters and management commentary on the path to profitability.

Also Read: Stocks in news: Bajaj Auto, Nazara Technologies, Dabur, Zomato and more