[Exclusive] Kurly in hot seat over belated payment of performance-based bonus

By Sun-young Yoon

Many companies have been embroiled in controversies recently over their performance-based bonuses.

Kurly, the operator of Market Kurly, is among such companies.

As it has delayed payment of performance-based bonuses to its employees, there is a speculation that Kurly is facing financial difficulties.

The online grocer has yet to pay bonuses for last year’s performance.

Kurly’s human resources team informed its employees via email that bonuses for the performance of the first half of last year would be paid in July last year, while those for the performance of the second half would be distributed in late January.

“Our performance assessments were delayed, due to the procedure to upgrade our evaluation system,” a Kurly official said. “We notified team leaders and higher-level employees that the bonuses will be paid in February, but it seems that some teams did not share the notification.”

The company added that the bonuses will be given with monthly salaries later this month.

In January last year, Kurly drew attention as it announced it would give stock options to permanent employees and cash bonuses to temporary workers, ahead of its stock market listing which has been postponed indefinitely.

Although the company explained it delayed the payment of performance-based bonuses for only a month, there remains questions about worries among its employees.

Some of its employees attributed the delayed payment to the company’s financial situation.

Because Kurly has continuously increased its spending amid the cumulative loss, concerns have grown that it may use up the money it had attracted in investment by the end of the first half of this year.

The last investment Kurly had attracted was the 250 billion won ($200 million) from a Hong Kong-based private equity firm in late 2021, when its enterprise value was estimated at 4 trillion won. Financial investors are therefore unlikely to make such a large investment once again at this moment.

Kurly has dismissed concerns about its liquidity.

Its specific cash reserves will be disclosed through its audit report to be published next month.

*This was translated from the article originally written in Korean. For more accurate information, please refer to the original version by using the link below. In case of discrepancies between the two versions, the Korean version shall prevail.

https://n.news.naver.com/mnews/article/374/0000321319?sid=103

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