BharatPe cofounder Ashneer Grover: BharatPe cofounder Ashneer Grover is demanding Rs 4,000 crore from the company’s investors. He said that if they want to kick him out of the company, he will have to pay Rs 4,000 crore to buy his stake. Clearly, Grover is in no mood to change his stance despite investigations on issues like fraud allegations, tough behavior and corporate governance.
Will have to buy stake at a valuation of $ 6 billion
While Grover denied all the allegations in an interview to Moneycontrol, he said that he would leave the company only if an investor buys his 9.5 per cent stake in the company at a valuation of $6 billion.
Grover said, “What have I done that I should resign? It is like giving punishment before investigation. I am the Managing Director. I run the company. If the board feels that I don’t need to continue as MD and someone else should run the company, please put Rs 4,000 crore on the table and let me go out.”
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He said, “Do you want to buy me out then buy at fair market value, right? In my opinion the fair market value is $6 billion. Either I will run the company or buy me out, there is no third option.”
The valuation was $3 billion last year
Last year, when BharatPe raised Tiger Global Quotient and another $ 370 million, the company was valued at $3 billion. Grover said, “My merchant business has grown 50 per cent after this assessment was done in May 2021. I got a bank license, then it was not there. I developed the largest P2P (peer-to-peer) platform, 12 Cent Club, which was not there before. I made a BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later) Play, PostPe. Apart from getting the license, we also merged PMC Bank. Had I been running the business, I was confident of raising funds at a valuation of $6 billion.”
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Relationships deteriorated at the board level
Relations at the board level seem to be deteriorating in BharatPe with the appointment of Alvarez & Marshall and PwC to conduct forensic audits by the board headed by CEO Suhail Sameer.
While Grover went on leave till March due to hate speech against an employee of Kotak, BharatPe’s toxic culture and strict behavior, meanwhile his wife Madhuri Jain Grover also went on leave last week. Went.
Legal notice was sent to Kotak
On January 9, 2022, the controversy escalated after Moneycontrol reported that Ashneer Grover and his wife had sent a legal notice to Uday Kotak, MD & CEO, Kotak Mahindra and senior management. He had accused the bank of not securing financing and share allocation for the IPO launched by beauty firm Nykaa.