Realty portal Housing.com had been struggling with mounting losses when CEO Rahul Yadav was let go, documents filed by the company reveal. In FY 2014-2015, Housing recorded a loss of Rs. 279 crore. Its revenue in the same period was Rs. 12 crore. In comparison, competitor CommonFloor had revenues of Rs. 45 crore.
A major chunk of Housing’s expenses came from its 120 crore “Look Up” marketing blitzkrieg that saw the company promoting itself on billboards across the country. The next biggest expense was employee benefits, which totaled to Rs. 85 crore.
Housing had a tumultuous 2015, which saw CEO Rahul Yadav lock horns with the company’s investors. In May 2015, he had resigned in a huff, calling the company’s investors “intellectually incapable”. He’d taken his resignation back a day later, and had soon announced that he was distributing this entire stake in the company, then worth around Rs. 150 crore, among its employees. He had then taken on the media, saying that the Times Group was publishing unflattering reports about him and Housing, to the benefit of the Times Group owned realty portal Magic Bricks.
Following this, Yadav had been sacked in July 2015 as Housing CEO under dramatic circumstances, with police being present outside the Housing office during the board meeting. Housing appointed Rishabh Gupta as interim CEO, who was replaced by company outsider Jason Kothari in November.
Housing’s troubles haven’t ended since Yadav’s sacking. The company fired 600 employees in August, which was followed by another round of layoffs in which 200 employees were fired in November. It has also been rumoured that the company will be sold off, with Quikr being one of the likely candidates.