Vishal Garg who fired 900 people on Zoom sees miserable public market debut

Once valued at $7.7 billion, Garg’s SoftBank-backed company faced a harrowing time as it went public via a SPAC merger. The stock, which had been trading at $17.44, plummeted 94 per cent to $1.15 last week. The digital mortgage lender made its public debut on August 24 and the stock wasn’t exactly a hit with public investors. Better.com had planned to go public at a $7.7 billion valuation two years ago. Now, Better.com’s market cap is hovering around just $19.14 million. Better.com is facing “shrinking revenue and haemorrhaging cash following an Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) inquiry and the dismissal of 7,000 employees over the past two years, reports Forbes. A July prospectus filed with the SEC, the company wrote that its management and accounting firm had expressed doubts about the company’s “ability to continue as a going concern". In June, Garg reportedly laid off its real estate team and shut down the unit. The company is said to be shifting from an in-house agent model to a partnership agent model, TechCrunch reported. In December 2021, Garg laid off nearly 900 employees over a Zoom call that created a furore. --IANS na/ksk

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