Zomato To Appoint Deloitte As Blinkit, Hyperpure Auditor As SR Batliboi Resigns

The statutory auditor for two subsidiaries of Zomato Ltd. has stepped down, the food aggregator told the exchanges on Sunday. The auditor exit will allow Zomato to appoint Deloitte Haskins & Sells LLP as the statutory auditor of its two arms, the Deepinder Goyal-led company said, adding that the change is meant to "make the audit process more efficient".

SR Batliboi & Associates LLP tendered its resignation as auditor for Zomato Hyperpure Pvt. and Blink Commerce Pvt. after discussions with their parent company, the statement read.

Hyperpure is a B2B platform offering kitchen supplies and end-to-end restaurant supply chain solutions to hotels, restaurants and caterers. Blink Commerce does business as quick commerce platform Blinkit.

"...we understand that the holding company's Management wants to align the statutory auditor of the company with the auditors of the holding company responsible for audit of [consolidated] accounts to avoid some duplication and bring some efficiencies in the audit process at group level," SR Batliboi told boards of both Zomato units in separate letters.

The audit firm said it has audited the financial statements both companies for the year ended March, and a report for the same has been submitted on May 10. It has not started the audit for the current fiscal.

Zomato is scheduled to release the financial results for the quarter and year ended March on Monday. In its third-quarter results, the company logged a fourfold rise in profit to Rs 138 crore.

Zomato's gross order value during the December quarter across businesses such as Hyperpure, Blinkit and food delivery grew 13% sequentially to Rs 12,886 crore. For Blinkit, gross order value grew at over 100% year-on-year.

Recently, Zomato hiked its mandatory platform fee on each order to Rs 5 and also suspended intercity food delivery service called Legends.