Troubled edtech major Byju’s, which held an emergency general meeting (EGM) yesterday, is likely to form a Board Advisory Committee (BAC). This comes as the company has been facing backlash on its corporate governance.
Based of discussions held in the EGM, the BAC will serve as a working group consisting of independent directors with credible backgrounds and relevant experience from diverse corporate fields, per the discussions held by CEO Byju Raveendran at the meeting. BAC’s primary purpose will be to provide advice and guidance to the CEO on matters pertaining to the composition of the board and the governance structure suitable for a company of Byju’s scale and size.
At the meeting, Raveendran addressed the importance of assembling a board that aligns with the ambitious goals of Byju’s. “Byju’s is much larger than any individual, and the decisions made will be in the best interest of the company,” he said.
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Recently, three of its board members — GV Ravishankar of Sequoia Capital (now Peak XV Partners), Vivian Wu of Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and Russell Dreisenstock of Prosus — resigned over differences with Raveendran on operational issues. Byju’s currently does not have any independent directors on its board.
Assurance to shareholders
Addressing the issues with its lenders, Raveendran has assured his shareholders that a resolution will be found soon, and neither of the parties are interested in legal proceedings.
Further to its auditor Deloitte Haskins & Sells exiting, the company had appointed BDO as its new auditors. At the said EGM, Ajay Goel, CFO of Byju’s, informed the shareholders that the audit for most of the subsidiaries like - Great Learning, Epic, Osmo, TutorVista, Edurite- for FY22 has been successfully completed. However, the audit for Aakash, WHJr, and T&L is currently underway in parallel, with the aim of optimising the timelines.
The company has also reiterated that it will adhere to the timeline previously provided. The timeline for the completion of the FY22 audit is set for the end of September, while the FY23 audit is expected to be concluded by the end of December. Byju’s has also decided to hold another EGM, approximately in the next three weeks, to give an update on all the discussed issues.
Mint first reported that shareholders of the company are demanding for Byju Raveendran to take a backseat and let someone else step in as CEO. However, the company denied that the change of CEO was discussed at the meeting.
One of its shareholders, Saurabh Gupta, Managing Partner at DST Global - which holds a 3.2 per cent stake- in a statement said, “I can confirm that at the EGM, there was no discussion on potential CEO change. This topic never came up and was not on the EGM agenda.”