When Quikr acquired CommonFloor for $200 million (Rs 1350 crore) via cash/stock deal in November last year, it was celebrated as a perfect consolidation between a real estate and a billion dollar online classifieds portal, with a solid vision for the future.
The confirmation of the same was announced in an interesting way, on Twitter, which showed the bonhomie shared between these two startups. Sumit Jain, founder of CommonFloor had clearly stated that there would be terminations, no firings and no shake-ups in the company structure.
But it seems, that was all a cover-up, and the stark realities have now emerged.
Within 3 months of finalizing the acquisition, Quikr has decided to fire 150 employees of CommonFloor. The HR Department is sending carefully crafted emails to all those employees, who are being asked to leave. One common theme observed in these emails sent out to employees is the sentence: “there is no suitable role for your designation.”; besides asking employees to, “to look out for career opportunities outside the company”.
In fact, reports have emerged which states that CommonFloor’s Bangalore office (in Diamond District) would be entirely shut down in the next few months.
As per available information from Inc42, the following is the headcount of employees who are being fired from various departments:
- Design team: 15 employees have been fired, which is actually the entire team
- Engineering team: 5-10 employees fired
- Product team: 5 employees fired
- Service team: 20-30 employees fired
At the time of the acquisition, Bangalore office had around 650 employees, with total strength of 1000 employees pan-India.
Interestingly, there is no clause or mention of ‘severance’ pay in the termination mails. It seems that the management is ‘asking the employees’ to resign, which means that the company is not liable to pay any compensation. After the emails started coming in since last Friday, several employees have themselves quit, without any prompt.
Quikr has responded via an email query, as they said: “Bangalore will now serve as the main hub for all business functions of both Quikr and CommonFloor. As part of the overall integration exercise, we have been analysing all our assets and believe it is best to consolidate our physical as well as people assets based on our business needs. Together, we are highly committed to our consumers, people, partners and growing business in India.”
It was reported that Quikr and CommonFloor founders shall meet the employees on Monday, but no confirmation or denial has been reported since then.
We will keep you updated as more details come in.
If you are a CommonFloor employee, then do share your experience right here.
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