Ashneer Grover, the embattled co-founder of Indian fintech unicorn BharatPe, has resigned as the managing director and director of the company a day after the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) dismissed his petition to ward off a board investigation.
In a scathing letter addressed to the board, Grover said he is being baselessly targeted by a few individuals, and has been “vilified and treated in the most disgraceful manner.”
“I write this with a heavy heart as today I am being forced to bid adieu to a company of which I am a founder. I say with my head held high that today this company stands as a leader in the fintech world. Since the beginning of 2022, unfortunately, I’ve been embroiled in baseless and targeted attacks on me and my family by a few individuals who are ready not only to harm me and my reputation but also harm the reputation of the company, which ostensibly they are trying to protect,” Grover wrote in his resignation letter, which has been reviewed by Business Today.
“From being celebrated as the face of Indian entrepreneurship and an inspiration to the Indian youth to build their own businesses, I am now wasting myself fighting a long, lonely battle against my own investors and management. Unfortunately, in this battle, the management has lost sight of what is actually at stake – BharatPe,” he wrote.
He accused the board of being ‘so far removed from reality’ that they have ‘forgotten what real businesses look like’. Grover said the board has chosen to believe in ‘gossip and rumours’ than trying to have a frank conversation with him.
Last week, BharatPe had terminated the services of Madhuri Jain, ex-head of controls at the company and Grover’s wife, on the allegations of financial irregularities and money siphoning.
BusinessToday.In, had earlier reported that that BharatPe board has decided to terminate the services of Grover, especially on account of the serious charges of funds misappropriation, which includes GST evasion, leading to BharatPe to pay over Rs 11 crore after the raids were conducted by the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) at the fintech's head office and issued summons to the company’s authorised signatory to appear before the authority on November 1, 2021.
It all began with a leaked audio clip allegedly featuring Grover and a family member hurling abuses at a Kotak Group employee for not getting a share allotment in Nykaa's initial public offering (IPO). It snowballed into a point of no return for the man who was already gathering divided opinions on him for his abrasiveness as a judge on the Indian version of Shark Tank, a business reality show.
Grover sent a legal notice to Kotak Mahindra Bank, seeking damages from Uday Kotak, head of Kotak Mahindra Bank, alleging that the bank declined financing for a personal investment. The Kotak Group replied to the notice, including placing on record its objections to inappropriate language used by Grover.
Around the same time, details of an earlier bust-up with Harshjit Sethi, MD of Sequoia India, BharatPe’s largest shareholder, emerged where Grover allegedly used profanity.
As worrying developments continue to pop up, BharatPe appointed management consultant and risk advisory firm Alvarez and Marsal (A&M) and ‘Big Four’ accounting firm PwC to conduct an independent audit and advise the board on its recommendations.
A preliminary report by A&M found inconsistencies with recruitment and fake invoices which involved Grover’s wife Madhuri Jain, her brother Shwetank Jain and brother-in-law Deepak Jagdishram Gupta. The investigation found five instances of BharatPe recruiting employees through various consultants who are paid the recruitment fees, although the employees denied being hired through the consultants mentioned in the invoice. As per the report, in three such above cases, Jain had directly received invoices from vendors and forwarded them to the account departments to make payments. Payments were also made to non-existent vendors.
Also read: Ashneer Grover likely to be sacked from BharatPe: Sources
Also read: Ashneer Grover-BharatPe battle may shift to local courts after SIAC dismisses plea