The $16 billion Walmart-Flipkart deal came closer home to many Flipkart employees when a letter sent to them listed out the process and price of the employee stock buyback. For those who are current employees with already vested options (see this story to know more about this: bit.ly/2wDOsfC), the money will come in three tranches—half on the date the transaction closes in about 60-90 days, a quarter a year later and the rest at the end of two years from the first liquidation. The letter puts the value per share that the firm will buy back from the vested stock options between $125 and $129. At the current conversion rate, a person holding 10,000 shares will make approximately a pre-tax Rs8 crore.
Sudden windfalls can be exhilarating; it must be quite a trip to see your account balance that has a number with so many zeros. But hold on, research shows that lottery winners go broke in three to five years. It took Sushil Kumar, the Rs5-crore-Kaun Banega Crorepati winner in 2011, just a few years to burn through the cash. From a person who earned Rs6,000 a month pre-KBC, to having a post-tax Rs3.46 crore in the bank, to selling milk from the four cows he bought and some fixed deposits, took just three years.
