“I, now, in exercise of the power vested in me by Clause 3.7 of the SHA and Clause 91.7 of the AoA do hereby withdraw, my nomination of Suhail Sameer as a Director nominated by me to the Board of Directors of the Company,” Grover wrote in a note dated February 2. ET has reviewed the document sent to the board members.
Sameer was hired by Grover in 2020, and was made the chief executive in August, last year. Grover had assumed the role of managing director of BhararPe, around the same time.
Interestingly, the letter also includes the consent of BharatPe’s other cofounder Shashvat Mansukhbhai Nakrani to remove Sameer from the board of directors. Both Nakrani and Grover jointly nominated Sameer as a director of the company on August 20, 2021.
As per BharatPe’s shareholder’s agreement, noted in the letter, each founder has the right to be nominated as a director to the board and may nominate another person as a director (instead of the founder himself/herself) with the prior consent of investors representing the ‘majority investor threshold’.
Grover has also alleged that the board pursued tactics of ‘corporate intimidation’ through the appointment as well as the introduction of Shardul Amarchand in board discussions.
Discover the stories of your interest
ET reported earlier this week that Grover
had brought onboard New Delhi-based law firm Karanjawala & Co to take legal advice amid mounting pressure on him from the board to leave the company.
In an earlier interaction with ET, Grover had stated that the board of BharatPe was ‘spooked’, with the release of his expletive-laced ‘audio clip’,
which he continues to maintain as ‘fake’.
“In a normal scenario, for any dispute involving an individual, the board does not need to get involved. I have created a business in record time. BharatPe today is worth around $6 billion. Whenever a business becomes that big, and each shareholder’s stake is worth half a billion dollars, the board will obviously act in a manner which it feels is necessary for value preservation,” said Grover.
“I’m happy to participate in anything, as long as it is fair and as per Indian laws. Anything which is extrajudicial or if anyone wants to go overboard—I will not be able to participate. I’m very clear as far as my personal wealth is concerned—it’s an open book,” added Grover.
The investigation continues…
On Friday morning, ET reported that a preliminary investigation by Alvarez and Marsal (A&M) commissioned by BharatPe’s board
has found fraudulent transactions including payments to non-existent vendors as well as irregularities of invoices being produced to substantiate spends.
The findings of the report by A&M, dated January 24, said the company (BharatPe) pays recruitment fees to a number of ‘consultants’ on employees recruited through them. “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,” the report, reviewed by ET said.
The report mentions BharatPe’s founder Ashneer Grover’s wife Madhuri Jain received at least three of these invoices herself and forwarded them to the company for payments. The invoices were created by Shwetank Jain, Jain’s brother, the report added.
Apart from the same typeface, these ‘irregular’ invoices also had similar physical addresses, with some having the same bank branches, A&M’s investigation pointed out.
“All of them appear to have a ‘Panipat connection’. It may be mentioned that Madhuri Grover is originally from Panipat,” the investigation document read.
