Ola Cabs CEO Hemant Bakshi Steps Down

Ola Cabs's Hemant Bakshi has stepped down from his role as chief executive officer, four months after his appointment.

"Hemant will be stepping down from his role as CEO to pursue opportunities outside the company. We extend our gratitude to Hemant for his contributions and wish him the best in his future endeavours," Bhavish Aggarwal, founder of Ola Cabs, said in a letter to employees as seen by NDTV Profit.

The Bengaluru-based ride-hailing startup, which has SoftBank and Tiger Global as backers, is going through a "restructuring exercise" in order to gear up the company for its "next phase of growth", he said in the letter.

"In line with our vision to serve 1 billion Indians, and our commitment to drive sustainable growth and enhance efficiency across the organisation, we are undergoing a restructuring exercise aimed at improving profitability and preparing ourselves for the next phase of growth," the mail read.

In January, Ola Cabs had announced the former Hindustan Unilever Ltd. executive's appointment and had said that its mobility business hit Ebitda-level profitability in the last fiscal.

At that time, the company had said that Ola operator, ANI Technologies Pvt.'s standalone earnings, which include only Ola's mobility business, posted "segment-adjusted" Ebitda of about Rs 250 crore.

Ola Cabs, which is locked in competition with Uber in India, is planning a $500 million initial public offering later this year, following the planned public debut of Ola Electric—a subsidiary spun out of the ride-hailing app's main business.

Earlier, Ola Cabs had decided to shutter its overseas ride-hailing business altogether from three international markets—the UK, Australia and New Zealand—by the end of April, to concentrate on the domestic market.

Its sister Ola Electric Mobility Pvt. had filed its draft red herring prospectus with SEBI in December, but is yet to get the nod from the market regulator.

However, a person with knowledge of the matter had earlier told NDTV Profit, that Ola Electric's IPO may happen before Ola Cabs' filing as the regulator's queries have been provided and the approval should come soon.