Indian electronics engineer Siddharth Pandey will become a millionaire after the country's biggest-ever public issue, but he says he had to overcome his father's opposition to joining fintech firm Paytm when it was a fledgling startup nine years ago.
About 350 current and ex-employees will each have a net worth of at least Rs 100 lakh after Paytm's over Rs18,600 cr IPO, a source in the company told Reuters. Many, like Pandey, will become dollar millionaires when the company lists next week.
Those rewards are huge in a country where the per capita income is below $2,000.
Also Read | Paytm IPO: Offer price fixed at Rs 2,150 apiece
Pandey, now 39, is no longer with the company and is working at another start-up that he declined to identify. But he says his seven-year stint at Paytm left him with tens of thousands of shares.
He declined to give details, but the shares were priced at Rs 2,150 apiece on Friday. Pandey said he would be worth more than Rs 10 lakh.
"My dad was very demotivating. He said, 'What is this Paytime?!'," Pandey told Reuters, referring to the time he joined Paytm in 2013.
"'For once work in a company people know about,' my father said."
"Now he (my father) is obviously very happy. He has just asked me to stay grounded," said Pandey, who is from Uttar Pradesh, the country's most populous state and one of its poorest.
When Pandey joined Paytm it was primarily a small payments company with fewer than 1,000 staff. Today the firm has more than 10,000 employees and offers a range of services from banking, shopping, movie and travel ticketing to gaming.
To celebrate, Pandey says he took his father on a five-day luxury trip to Udaipur, a popular tourist destination in the desert state of Rajasthan in September, spending roughly Rs 4 lakh.
"Paytm has always been a generous paymaster. Vijay (Sharma, the Paytm founder) has always wanted that people make money, they move up in life," Pandey said.
Married and with two children, he says that the windfall will allow him to work in startups where he is not entirely focused on his income or even help him get back into academics.
"Part of the money goes into my retirement fund and I will use a large part of it for my kids' education," he said.
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