Edtech major BYJU'S has reportedly vacated its largest office space in Bengaluru in a bid to cut costs and shore up liquidity amid a delay in funding, Moneycontrol reported on Monday.
BYJU'S has three office spaces in Bengaluru. The Kalyani Tech Park, which is spread across an area of 5.58 lakh square feet, has been vacated. The embattled edtech has also given up a portion of another office space in Prestige Tech Park, the report said.
The company has vacated two of the nine floors it had in the building. The company has reportedly asked the employees to work out of its other premises or from their homes from July 23.
Employees quoted in the report said that they have been asked to from Prestige Tech Park and its main office on Baneghatta Main Road as of now.
"BYJU’s has over 3 million square feet of rented spaces across the country to support its requirements. Expansion and reduction in office space is based on changes in working policies and business priorities which are very regular and is aimed at boosting operational efficiencies," a BYJU’s spokesperson quoted in the report said.
In June 2022, the company took two buildings - Magnolia and Ebony - in Kalyani Tech Park in Brookfield on lease. In June, the employees vacated Magnolia and shifted their operations to Ebony.
Last year, the edtech had leased these spaces with a lock-in period of three years. Vacating the office space of about 5.58 lakh sq ft, the company is expected to save close to Rs 3 crore on monthly rent, the report said.
The edtech has been in deep waters since its auditor, Delloite, and three investor board members resigned from their posts. In June, Deloitte Haskins and Sells resigned as BYJU’s auditor citing a delay in submitting financial statements. Directors - GV Ravishankar, Russell Dreisenstock and Vivian Wu — also resigned from Byju’s board.
After quitting, Deloitte explained its inability to commence an audit for FY22 financial statements due to delays in accessing financial statements and the underlying books of account. It said financial statements for FY22 should have been placed before shareholders at an annual general meeting by September 2022.
Besides this, the company has been under scanner for many reasons, including accounting irregularities, deal with lenders, mass layoffs, pending financial results for 2021-22 (FY22).
BYJU’s offices in Bengaluru were also searched by the Enforcement Directorate in April this year, under provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act.
Last month, BYJU’s had come under the scanner of the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) over non-payment of PF dues. Several former employees of edtech unicorn Byju’s accused it of not depositing the provident fund (PF) component of their salaries in the EPF account.
The EPFO data showed that Think and Learn Pvt Ltd, the parent company of BYJU’s, has not paid the PF money for most of its employees in FY24.
While for April, the PF contribution for 3,164 employees was paid after a delay of 36 days, only 31 employees’ accounts received the payment for May.
The company made the PF contributions for December 2022, January 2023, February and March on June 19. However, not all the employees’ accounts were credited with this payment, show the data.
The data also show that BYJU’s hasn’t been disciplined in paying the PF money for a while now. For instance, there are cases where employees were paid the PF money due for 2020, only in June 2023.
BYJU’s also laid off over 1,000 employees last month, in what was another cost-cutting initiative. On July 22 at an emergency town hall meeting with over 5,000 BYJU’s Tuition Centre (BTC) employees, the embattled company agreed to remit variable pay and other incentives to staff. It also promised not to lay off any employee from the BTCs.