Ant Group nominee on Zomato board steps down

Douglas Feagin, the nominee of China’s Ant Group on the board of Zomato, has resigned from his position of non-executive, non-independent director, according to a stock exchange filing by the food delivery platform.

The announcement comes a week after Feagin resigned from the board of One 97 Communications, the parent entity of Noida-based fintech company Paytm.

Feagin serves as the senior vice-president of the Ant Group, the financial services affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.


"In recognition of the company’s growth as a publicly-listed company and the maturity of the business, at the request of the nominating shareholder, I hereby resign from my position as a director on the Board of Directors of Zomato," Feagin said in his resignation letter.

Zomato Q3 results
Zomato posted a consolidated net loss of Rs 347 core compared to Rs 63-crore loss in the year-ago period and Rs 251 crore a quarter ago.

Consolidated revenue from operations, however, surged 75% to Rs 1,948 crore (YoY).

At the standalone level, however, the online food delivery aggregator’s performance further improved, with the company posting a net profit of Rs 62 crore against a loss of Rs 99.3 crore a year ago. Sequentially, the net profit has risen 5 times.

Excluding the Blinkit business, Zomato turned positive at the operating level in January even as the food delivery business witnessed a slowdown.

Company's senior management said the slowdown in online food delivery is temporary in nature and the worst may be over.

According to Zomato CFO Akshant Goyal, there has been an industry-wide slowdown in the food delivery business since late October (post-Diwali) and the trend is seen across the country, but more so in the top eight cities.

“As a result, GOV (gross order value) growth in food delivery in Q3FY23 was only 0.7% (QoQ) in an otherwise seasonally strong quarter,” he said.

In December, Reuters reported that Ant Group had sold a stake of about 3% in Zomato worth $200 million through a block deal.