Ananth Narayanan steps down as Myntra-jabong CEO Sachin Bansal invests `150 cr in Ola

NEW DELHI: Fashion e-tailer Myntra Monday said its CEO Ananth Narayanan has quit, a development that ends months of speculation about his exit following a recent re-jig at its parent group Flipkart.

In a statement, Myntra said Narayanan has decided to step down as CEO of Myntra and Jabong to pursue external opportunities. Amar Nagaram has been named as Head, Myntra and Jabong, and will report to Flipkart Group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy, it added.

There were speculations that Narayanan would quit after a new reporting structure was put in place when Binny Bansal -- the then CEO at Flipkart Group (which owns Myntra and Jabong) -- quit the company.

As a part of the new structure, Myntra and Jabong were brought under Flipkart, with Narayanan reporting to Krishnamurthy. Reports suggest that Narayanan is moving to content streaming platform Hotstar, but the same could not be independently ascertained.

"Ananth has played an important role in making Myntra and Jabong into a formidable player in the fashion e-commerce market and steering the company towards sustainable growth," Myntra said in its statement Monday.

It added that over the last three and a half years, Narayanan and the management team have built a strong foundation for the company.

"Myntra and Jabong are an important part of the Flipkart group serving our valuable customers. The company will continue to execute the growth strategy and leverage synergies with Flipkart as appropriate," it said.

The strong bench strength and new leadership at Myntra and Jabong will allow the business to continue on its strong and sustainable growth trajectory, the statement added.

Nagaram, who recently moved to Myntra from Flipkart, has been working with the group for around seven years.

"...(Nagaram) has played a pivotal role in making shopping accessible, delightful and affordable on every connected device. Most notably, he led the efforts on revisiting the boundaries of mobile web, making the experience on it as good as native," the statement said. NEW DELHI: Flipkart cofounder Sachin Bansal has pumped in about Rs 150 crore in ride-hailing platform Ola, according to documents filed with the Corporate Affairs Ministry.

"... 70,588 fully and compulsorily convertible, cumulative 'Series J' Preference Shares' having face value of Rs 10 having the rights, privileges and preferences... is hereby allotted at a subscription price of Rs 21,250," the documents showed.

This translates into an investment of about Rs 150 crore by Bansal, who left Flipkart after the US retail giant Walmart picked up 77 per cent stake in the e-commerce company for $16 billion. The resolution was passed at a board meeting of ANI Technologies, the entity that runs Ola, on January 12, according to the documents.

E-mails sent to Ola and Bansal did not elicit any response.

According to sources, Bansal is pumping in Rs 650 crore in total and the Rs 150 crore funding is part of the total investment. The allotment of these shares to Bansal is part of Ola's plans to raise about $1 billion in funding, they added.

In October last year, the Bengaluru-based company had announced raising $1.1 billion funding from China's Tencent Holdings and Softbank Group. It had also stated that it was in "advanced talks" to close an additional $1 billion funding to take total mop-up to more than $2 billion.

Ola is locked in a battle for market leadership with Us-based rival Uber in India and other markets like Australia, New Zealand and the UK. The Indian company has been aggressively ramping up its rides business as well as hailing platform and food delivery operations (through Foodpanda). K R Jinan addressing, CS Ashok Purohit, CS Mamta Binani, CS Makarand Lele, R Bandopadhyay, Sudhir Vyas, CS S K Agrawala and CS Siddhartha Murarka at 29th Regional Conference of Company Secretaries on the theme 3Ds: Deliberate, Debate & Document on Saturday, January 12, 2019 at Hotel ITC Sonar, Kolkata