Amidst growing trouble in the edtech firm Byju's, company's CEO Byju Raveendran told employees that he continues to remain the chief executive officer of the company. On Saturday, Mr Raveendran wrote a letter to his employees denying media reports of him being ousted as the company's CEO and called the media reports “greatly exaggerated and highly inaccurate.”
The letter read, “I am writing to you as the CEO of our company. Contrary to what you may have read in the media, I continue to remain CEO, the management remains unchanged, and the board remains the same.”
While saying that it is “business as usual” at BYJU'S, he added, “To reemphasise, the rumours of my firing have been greatly exaggerated and highly inaccurate.”
This comes just a day after shareholders (prominent investors) on Friday voted “unanimously” to unseat Mr Raveendran from the board.
Referring to this vote, Mr Raveendran said, “Just as you can't change the rules of a game midway without agreement from all players, we can't alter how our company is run without following these strict guidelines.”
Further, Mr Raveendran claimed that the Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) violated essential rules. Calling the meeting “a farce”, he claimed that it doesn't count.
He added, “At yesterday's Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM), a lot of these essential rules were violated. This means that whatever was decided in that meeting does not count because it didn't stick to the established rules. It is crucial for everyone to understand the specific issues that make this EGM a farce.”
Talking about the key discrepancies in the meeting, Mr Raveendran said, “The claims made by a small group of select minority shareholders that they have unanimously passed the resolution in the EGM is completely wrong. Only 35 out of 170 shareholders (representing around 45% of shareholding) voted in favour of the resolution. That in itself shows the very limited support that this irrelevant meeting received.”
Mr Raveendran, his wife and his brother are the only three members on the company board as of now. They stayed away from the EGM called by a group of six investors, who collectively hold 32 per cent of the firm that operates Byju's.