Tata Group’s Titan plans to buy CaratLane employee ESOPs for approximately Rs 350 crore

Tata Group’s jewellery business Titan plans to purchase employee stock options held by CaratLane employees for between Rs 340 crore and Rs 350 crore after recently agreeing to buy CaratLane’s founder Mithun Sacheti’s stake in the business. 

Titan recently committed to purchasing Sacheti’s stake in CaratLane for a total of Rs 4,621 crore and is now looking to take on the approximately 1.5% stake of the company’s ESOP pool, anonymous sources close to the development told ET Online. CaratLane counts approximately 1,700 employees and the remaining stake in the business is held by both current and former CaratLane employees and by several senior management officials at Titan. 
 
After acquiring Sacheti’s 27.18% stake in CaratLane, Titan will hold a 98.28% stake in the omni-channel business. The acquisition deal saw CaratLane reach a valuation of Rs 17,000 crore, ET Bureau reported. 

Hailing from a jewellery industry family, Mithun Sacheti launched CaratLane in 2008 with co-founder Srinivasa Gopalan. Sacheti bought out Gopalan’s stake in the business for Rs 50 crore in 2018 and then sold his stake to Titan on August 19 this year. Sacheti’s exit from CaratLane is the second highest value exit for an e-commerce founder in India following Flipkart founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal’s exit from their business.