Byju’s shareholders vote to oust CEO; company calls it ‘invalid’

PTI

New Delhi, February 23

The majority of Byju’s shareholders on Friday voted unanimously for removing founder CEO Byju Raveendran and his family from the board over alleged “mismanagement and failures” at what was once India’s hottest tech startup, but the company dug in its heels, calling the voting done in absence of founders as invalid and ineffective.

Investors move nclt against founders

Four out of the six investors have filed an oppression and mismanagement suit against the management of the company in the Bengaluru bench of the NCLT, seeking declaring of founders, including Byju CEO Raveendran, as unfit to run the company, appointment of a new board, declaring the just-concluded rights issue as void and a forensic audit of accounts.

Founder CEO Raveendran Byju, his wife and brother — the only three members on company board as of now — stayed away from the extraordinary general meeting (EGM) called by a group of six investors, who collectively hold more than 32 per cent in Think & Learn (T&L), the firm that operates online tution platform Byju’s.

More than 60 per cent of the shareholders voted in favour of all seven resolutions, which included removing the current management, reconfiguration of the board and a third party forensic investigation into acquisitions done by the company.

Prosus — one of the six investors who had called the EGM — in a statement said “shareholders unanimously passed all resolutions put forward for vote. “These included a request for the resolution of the outstanding governance, financial mismanagement and compliance issues at Byju’s; the reconstitution of the board of directors, so that it is no longer controlled by the founder of T&L; and a change of leadership of the company.”

However, the outcome of the vote at the EGM will not be applicable until March 13, when the Karnataka High Court will next hear Raveendran’s plea challenging the move by certain investors to call the meeting.

Byju’s in a statement, issued before the EGM results were declared, said it “firmly declares that the resolutions passed during the recently concluded EGM - attended by a small cohort of select shareholders - are invalid and ineffective. Raveendran and family own 26.3 per cent in the company.

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