Ibibo Group, a subsidiary of South Africa-based media and internet company Naspers, has appointed former Infoedge India executive vice-president Prakash Sangam as the new chief executive officer of online bus ticketing firm redBus.in, which it had acquired in June 2013 for close to $135 million, with the redBus founders moving out in the process.
redBus co-founders Phanindra Sama, who continued to work as the company’s CEO even after the acquisition, and Charan Padmaraju will exit the company. redBus.in, founded by Sama, Padmaraju and Sudhakar Pasupunuri in 2006, was one of the first and largest online bus ticketing platforms in India.
?We are glad that the transition happened in a smooth manner and continue to have a good relationship with the founders. We will continue to grow redBus platform and our application,” Ibibo Group CEO Ashish Kashyap told FE.
Ibibo Group also announced the appointment of former Diageo executive Rohan Patnaik as the head of supply and operations and Anoop Menon as the head of the engineering functions of redBus, including redbus.in, BOGDS (bus operator facing platform) and SeatSeller (agent facing platform).
“Over the last one year, we have been successfully integrating redBus into the Ibibo Group and this was part of our original plan,” said Kashyap. He added that the group had an understanding that Sama will see the company through the transition and the group has been transferring the top management team from Ibibo to redBus over the past year.
Over the past year or so, competitors have been eating into redBus market share with Travelyaari.com, Ticketgoose.com, Yatragenie.com among others starting to advertise in mass media.
