"We shouldn't have taken this...," Byju Raveendran calls USD 1.2 billion term loan a mistake

Dubai [UAE], May 17 : BYJU'S founder Byju Raveendran has admitted that one of the company's biggest mistakes was opting for a USD 1.2 billion term loan in 2021, despite having sufficient equity funding options.

In an interview with ANI, Raveendran revealed that the decision, made collectively with board members including investor and founder directors, was not driven by desperation, as the company had raised USD 5 billion earlier.

Reflecting on the move, he acknowledged that alternative options were available and the loan ultimately contributed to BYJU'S financial challenges.

"Only mistake if you ask me, which created all this is that we shouldn't have taken this, when we had enough equity options, we shouldn't have taken this term loan at that time in 2021. One billion (USD) because it was, like, we had other options. We have raised 5 billion before that. We were not doing it out of desperation. It was all collective decision. Today everyone, like our board was like three founder directors and three investor directors. They were there till 2020," Raveendran said.

"....those are all business mistakes. now I am like today, even though that came through an acquisition, the concept of whitehead Junior, what would have really changed is teachers in India teaching students anywhere in the world who wanted to learn math from Indian teachers. Like, that's a huge opportunity lost," he said.

The Bengaluru-based edtech company is facing financial problems, regulatory issues, and legal battles.

Raveendran also spoke about the payments made to the cricket board BCCI.

"We paid...we would have paid almost thousand five hundred crores before that. But the last 158 crores, we were not able to pay because the company was going through a liquidity crunch. Approximately, that's the amount we would have paid in those three years when we had the sponsorship. Last 10% was remaining, which they went to NCLT with that. But the moment, we got admitted into this CIRP process, we arrived at a settlement with BCCI and we paid them the amount. So we should have been out of insolvency and company should have come back, should have been back to us within 15 days," he said.

Raveendran termed the acquisition of Akash Institutes as one of his "best acquisitions".

"It's one of our best acquisitions. Today, all this narrative around acquisitions - like we made mistakes - like when you make six big acquisitions, four of them are doing well but everyone talks about the two, and that's how it works, right?" Raveendran said.

Edtech BYJU's in April 2021 acquired Aakash Educational Services Ltd (AESL) for nearly USD 950 million.

The deal was a cash-and-stock deal, and the acquisition was one of the largest in the Indian startup ecosystem. The deal involved a 70 per cent cash component and a 30 per cent equity component.

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