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Embattled BharatPe co-founder and managing director Ashneer Grover has suffered yet another setback as the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) has refused to grant him emergency relief from a governance review being conducted by the company, according to media reports.
ALSO READ: The unravelling of Ashneer Grover’s fortunes: A blow-by-blow account
Grover had filed an arbitration plea earlier this month to stop a probe into alleged financial mismanagement in the company. The BharatPe MD, who is on leave till March end, is also said to be seeking indemnity against any future action by the company through the plea.
The company and Grover are reportedly in parallel talks to settle the matter through a buyout of the latter’s stake in the unicorn. Grover’s stake of 9.5 per cent in the company was worth Rs 1,915 crore based on the last funding round in August, when BharatPe was valued at $2.8 billion.
Key investors at BharatPe have turned down an offer made by co-founder Ashneer Grover to sell his stake in the fintech start-up for over Rs 4,000 crore if they want him to quit the company, Business Standard reported earlier.
Grover seems to have valued the payments company at around $6 billion — far higher than its valuation in the last funding round. However, the company was looking at a fresh raise in January this year at a valuation of around $4 billion.
The battle between the investors and Grover came to a head on Wednesday, when the company announced that it had terminated the services of Grover’s wife, Madhuri Jain, who was head of controls, over alleged financial irregularities and cancelled her stock options.
The company’s key investors include Sequoia Capital, with a 19.6 per cent stake, Coatue (12.4 per cent), Ribbit Capital (11 per cent), Beenext (9.6 per cent), amongst others. The investors have put in over $700 million in the company. In the subsequent rounds of capital raise, they have increased their collective stake in the company to over 66 per cent, even as the founders’ stake has been going down.
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