Byju's targets March for break-even; Epic to be hived off: Report

Byju's, the edtech unicorn, has set a target to reach break-even by March 2024. The company is also planning to hive off Epic, its US-based children's book reading app, as part of its cost-cutting measures.

The firm plans to achieve this ambitious goal through enterprise-wide consolidation and organizational restructuring. Its strategic blueprint also includes the settlement of an outstanding $1.2 billion loan, news agency PTI reported.

This comes after the company has decided to lower its employee count by 3,000 to 3,500 this month. The decision is designed to streamline operations and eliminate redundancy by ending the duplication of roles across various departments of the organisation.

"Think and Learn Private Ltd (TLPL) restructuring will see the current operations spread across several business units streamlined into four core areas of K-12, test prep, online and hybrid. The business restructuring, aimed at matching resources with cash flows, will see the company achieve break-even by coming March, in fourth quarter of current fiscal," PTI quoted a source as saying.

Byju's had previously stated that it hoped to become profitable by March 2023. Byju's reported a loss of Rs 4,588 crore for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021, which was 19 times greater than the previous fiscal.

In 2020-21 fiscal year, the losses significantly broadened from Rs 231.69 crore in 2019-20 fiscal year. Following an unprecedented environment caused by the pandemic, the company experienced a dip in revenues during FY21, slipping to Rs 2,428 crore from Rs 2,511 crore in FY20. Remarkably, the company managed to bounce back in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2022, as revenues surged by an impressive four-fold to Rs 10,000 crore.

The company has scheduled a shareholder meeting for the second week of October to settle its delayed financial statements for 2021-22.

"Byju's is in talks with investors to hive off Epic to help settle $1.2 billion Term Loan B. The company wants to dispose it off within 150 days. The proposal has gone to lenders and their response is awaited," PTI quoted a source as saying. 

Another source stated that, if necessary, Byju's may split off Great Learning as well, but that the funds raised by the Epic sale will suffice. 

"Besides fundraise, the company plans to focus restructuring and consolidation of 31 entities under it to optimise management bandwidth," PTI quoted a source as saying.

The company has earlier announced consolidation of Meritnation, TutorVista, Scholar and HashLearn.

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