E-commerce major Flipkart has changed its board as the company prepares to go public next year.
According to an ET reportGroup CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy will join the company’s board of directors along with three new members: Keki Mistry from HDFC, Suresh Kumar, Walmart’s Global CTO, and Leigh Hopkins, Walmart’s Executive Vice President of Strategy and International Development.
Krishnamurthy’s elevation to the board seat first came to light in October 2019 when media reports anticipated that Flipkart could amend your constitution to allow you a seat on the board.
The four new members will replace the current four members of the board, Steuart Walton, Dirk Van den Berghe, Rajesh Magow and Rohit Bhagat, who will leave the board. Bhagat, who was serving as an independent director at Flipkart, joined the PhonePe board as chairman.
Krishnamurthy informed Flipkart employees about the restructuring by email.
It’s worth noting that Walmart, which controls an 82.3% stake in Flipkart, will continue to retain three seats on the board that includes Walmart International CEO and President Judith McKenna, Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal and former Tiger executive. Global Lee Fixel.
The development comes three weeks after Flipkart announced the privatize PhonePe as a separate entity. Along with Bhagat, Bansal will also join Sameer Nigam and Rahul Chari as members of the PhonePe board.
While Flipkart has been preparing for its IPO probably next year, the company’s finances for fiscal 2020 show that it incurred huge losses at its wholesale and market entity. Flipkart’s wholesale unit has Recorded a 12% increase in revenue to Rs 34,610 crore for the 2019-20 financial year. During the period, the B2B arm recorded an 18% drop in net loss to Rs 3,150 crore.
In fiscal 2020, Flipkart’s market arm reported a 32% increase in revenue to Rs 6,317.7 crore along with a 19% increase in its net losses to Rs 1,936.6 crore.
