‘All PF dues have been cleared’: Edtech giant BYJU’S issues clarification on delayed payments

Beleaguered start-up BYJU’S has refuted claims of a delay in provident fund (PF) payments of its employees. A company spokesperson clarified: “There are no pending PF dues. We would like to reconfirm that all PF dues have been cleared till June 2023 for our employees. There have been a few authentication issues which are currently being worked on 1:1 with the employees and the PF department.”

On Tuesday, media reports surfaced suggesting that the company has not cleared the PF dues of most of its employees. 

The edtech giant has been facing challenging times for some time now. Last month, the company’s auditor Deloitte resigned along with its three board members. 

Yesterday, BYJU’S backer Prosus shared a statement disclosing the reason why its representative resigned from the company’s board. It said BYJU’S grew considerably as a company since 2018, but its reporting and governance structures did not evolve adequately to support that scale.

“Despite repeated efforts from our director, executive leadership at BYJU’S regularly disregarded advice and recommendations relating to strategic, operational, legal, and corporate governance matters,” the statement read. It also added, “The decision for our Director to step down from the BYJU’S Board was taken after it became clear that he was unable to fulfil his fiduciary duty to serve the long-term interests of the Company and its stakeholders.”

Even Peak XV, erstwhile Sequoia Capital India, has sent a letter to its limited partners (LPs) explaining the rationale behind the VC firm’s GV Ravishankar decision to resign from the board of edtech company BYJU'S.

The VC fund, which is the second-biggest institutional shareholder in the edtech company, told LPs that Ravishankar’s move to step down from the edtech firm’s board was due to BYJU’S lack of transparency in providing business updates and information to investors. 

In a separate development, a report by Bloomberg revealed that the company’s Chief Executive Officer Byju Raveendran reportedly broke down while defending the edtech giant during a call with investors. The report noted that this incident took place in April, when a probe agency raided the company’s Bengaluru offices and linked the world’s most valuable education-technology start-up with possible foreign exchange violations.

Also Read: Crisis at BYJU'S: After Prosus' explosive letter, Peak XV explains decision to resign from board