{"id":1656556,"date":"2022-09-25T00:50:43","date_gmt":"2022-09-25T04:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1656556"},"modified":"2022-09-25T00:51:16","modified_gmt":"2022-09-25T04:51:16","slug":"exclusive-grab-sees-no-big-layoffs-despite-weak-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/exclusive-grab-sees-no-big-layoffs-despite-weak-market\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive-Grab sees no big layoffs despite weak market"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fexclusive-grab-sees-no-big-layoffs-despite-weak-market%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1656556&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>By Anshuman Daga and Xinghui Kok<\/p>\n<p>SINGAPORE (Reuters) \u2013     Grab, Southeast Asia\u2019s biggest ride-hailing and food delivery firm, does not envisage having to undertake mass layoffs as some rivals have done, and is selectively hiring, while reining in its financial service ambitions.<\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1663871513696-art-1\">\n<\/div>\n<p>Chief Operating Officer Alex Hungate said that earlier in the year, Grab had been worried about a global recession and was \u201cvery careful and judicious about any hiring\u201d, and as a result, it had not got to the \u201cdesperate\u201d point of a hiring freeze or mass layoffs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAround mid-year, we did some kind of specific reorganisations, but I know other companies have been doing mass layoffs, so we don\u2019t see ourselves in that category,\u201d Hungate, 56, told Reuters in his first interview since joining Singapore-based Grab Holdings Ltd in January.<\/p>\n<p>The company was hiring for roles in data science, mapping technology and other specialised areas though every hire was a much bigger decision than it used to be, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou want to make sure that we\u2019re conserving capital. The hurdle for making a hire has definitely been raised.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Decade-old Grab, a household name in Southeast Asia, had about 8,800 staff at the end of 2021. Like its rivals, it has benefited from a boom in food services during the COVID-19 pandemic, while ride-hailing suffered.<\/p>\n<p>As economies open up, food delivery demand is softening while ride-hailing has yet to fully recover. Tech valuations have also fallen dramatically and inflation, slower growth and rising interest rates have emerged as risks.<\/p>\n<p>In recent weeks, Southeast Asia\u2019s largest e-commerce firm Shopee cut jobs in various countries and shut some overseas operations after parent Sea reported widening losses and scrapped its annual e-commerce forecast.<\/p>\n<p>Hungate, a veteran of the financial services, logistics and food sectors, has spearheaded a push away from low-margin business lines as Grab races to turn profitable.<\/p>\n<p>Second-quarter loss narrowed to $572 million from $801 million a year earlier. But last month, it cut its gross merchandise volume outlook for the year, blaming a strong dollar and ebbing food delivery demand.<\/p>\n<p>Last month, Grab said it was shutting dozens of so-called dark stores \u2013 distribution hubs for on-demand groceries and slowing the roll-out of its \u201ccloud kitchen\u201d centralised facilities for deliveries.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe other area where we\u2019ve really tightened our strategic intent is in financial services where we were growing payments, wallets and non-bank financial lending quite significantly off-platform and on our platform,\u201d said Hungate.<\/p>\n<p>Grab reorganised its fintech unit this year to focus on more lucrative areas and Reuters reported on the exit of some senior executives.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018HIGHER MARGINS\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Grab is now mainly focussing on selling its lending products and insurance on its platform to merchants and drivers who often repay from their income streams on the platform.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs we make this shift, the business mix will move towards higher margins,\u201d said Hungate.<\/p>\n<p>Grab, which operates in 480 cities in eight countries, has more than five million registered drivers and more than two million merchants on its platform.<\/p>\n<p>It caught global attention in 2018 when it acquired Uber\u2019s Southeast Asian business after a costly five-year battle.<\/p>\n<p>Grab is betting on growing financial services by offering banking and other products with partner Singapore Telecommunications in key markets.<\/p>\n<p>It listed on the Nasdaq in December after a record $40 billion merger with a blank-check company.<\/p>\n<p>Hungate said it was \u201cgood timing\u201d for the company to look again at how it spends money, given the increased scrutiny of finances and the need to respond to shareholders.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaybe we were lucky in a sense that the discipline of being a public company came at just the right time,\u201d he said, adding that Grab\u2019s $7.7 billion cash liquidity meant it was one of the best capitalised industry players in Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n<p>Grab\u2019s shares have tumbled about 60% this year to give it a market value of $10.6 billion.<\/p>\n<p>Reuters reported last month that Grab\u2019s Indonesian rival GoTo was seeking to raise about $1 billion through a convertible bond issue.<\/p>\n<p>Hungate said Grab would provide details of its progress towards profitability and other metrics at its first investor day on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Anshuman Daga; Editing by Robert Birsel)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oann.com\/uncategorized\/exclusive-grab-sees-no-big\/attachment\/exclusive-grab-sees-no-big-layoffs-despite-weak-market\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI8O01F-BASEIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI8O01F-BASEIMAGE\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Anshuman Daga and Xinghui Kok SINGAPORE (Reuters) \u2013 Grab, Southeast Asia\u2019s biggest ride-hailing and food delivery firm, does not envisage having to undertake mass layoffs as some rivals have<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1656556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1656556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1656556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1656556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1656556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1656556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1656556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}