Ashneer Grover, co-founder and managing director of the fintech startup BharatPe, has held talks with the investors to fully exit the company. He has discussed selling his 9.5 percent stake, Economic Times (ET) reported quoting two sources.
“While Grover is offering his stake at full price (current valuation), he would settle for anywhere around $1 billion valuation… But finding a buyer won’t be easy considering the events of the past month,” ET quotes another person in the know as saying.
Ashneer’s ostensible exit comes on the back of controversies surrounding financial irregularities as well as a leaked audio clip in which Grover is allegedly abusing a Kotak Mahindra Bank employee. Ashneer Grover is currently on a temporary leave following the audio leak.
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Regarding the financial irregularities, a primary investigation undertaken by Alvarez and Marsal (A&M) had uncovered false transactions encompassing payments to ghost vendors and invoice irregularities to justify certain spends. “In five sample cases, the employees have confirmed their date of joining as slated in the vendor invoice. But they have denied being recruited or engaged through the stated consultant or any knowledge of them… As per the document, the creator of all these invoices is ‘Shwetank Jain’. We understand from public domain sources that the brother of Madhuri Jain is ‘Shwetank Jain’. We noted invoices of three other vendors related to recruitment expenses. These have the same commonalities as mentioned above and all have the ‘author’ in document properties as ‘Shwetank Jain’,” the preliminary report accessed by ET read.
Grover had also hired Delhi based law firm Karanjawala & Co. to take legal advice to secure his 9 percent shareholding in the fintech company, as per media reports last week. He had allegedly hired them anticipating the probe findings which will be disclosed to the board.
Ashneer had also written a note to the company’s board seeking the removal of CEO Sameer Suhail. The letter had the consent of another co-founder Shashvat Nakrani.
BharatPe board had also hired accounting firm PwC to conduct an independent audit into alleged financial irregularities. It is said that an indictment by one of the Big 4 audit firms can lead to ouster of Ashneer Grover, as per a report by MoneyControl.
BharatPe is a fintech startup currently valued at USD2.85 billion.
