Adding to the woes of the embattled fortunes of the once celebrated education-tech BYJU'S boss, Byju Raveendran, the Enforcement Directorate has issued a Look Out Circular (LOC) against him.
This is said to be done to deter him from leaving the country. This comes at a time, when Raveendran is staring down the barrel of a high-stakes Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) this Friday during which certain investors are expected to push for his removal.
In the past, amid the declining fortunes of the BYJU'S, he has been making it to the news, with his emotional statements, assuring his employees of stability for the unicorn.
This is not the first time, that once venerated tech-CEO has had to deal with a situation like this, as, in 2023, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) issued show-cause notices to Think & Learn Pvt Ltd and Raveendran over alleged violations under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). BYJU'S responded by stating that the queries raised by the ED in the notice were 'solely technical' in nature.
The Bengaluru-based company has been facing financial troubles for long now. In June 2023, BYJU'S missed paying USD 40 million in interest to its TLB creditors and filed a lawsuit in New York on the same day. As of January 2024, BYJU'S was valued at a cataclysmic USD 200 million, a sharp fall from its peak of USD 22 billion in 2022.
The new year was no better for BYJU'S, as, in January 2024, foreign lenders filed an insolvency petition against the company. The dispute is over the use of funds and payments from October 2022 to March 2023. The company's US mission had also filed for bankruptcy, after it defaulted on USD 1.2 billion. Earlier this month, the National company Law Tribunal (NCLT) had also issued notice to for an insolvency case filed by a BPO (Business process outsourcing) service provider.
