Ashneer Grover, the co-founder and former managing director of BharatPe, has written to the Reserve Financial institution of India (RBI) requesting an investigation into the shareholding of the corporate. In a letter addressed to RBI governor Shaktikanta Das, Grover has alleged that BharatPe deliberately deceived the regulator by including Bhavik Koladiya, who was convicted of wire fraud within the US, to the corporate’s cap desk after acquiring licenses.Grover resigned from the corporate in March 2022. BharatPe is a joint-venture associate in Unity Small Finance Financial institution with the Centrum group.
In response to an ET report, Grover is looking for an investigation to find out if the corporate’s board and buyers held Koladiya’s shares for a particular time period earlier than bringing him again into the corporate after receiving approvals from the central financial institution.
The observe of holding shares for a time period earlier than an entity buying a big stake in an organization is named warehousing. Grover additionally questions whether or not BharatPe would have been deemed eligible for a stake in Unity Small Finance Financial institution or permitted to amass a controlling stake in non-banking finance firm Liquiloans if Koladiya had been a part of the corporate’s cap desk through the license utility course of. BharatPe has in-principle approval from the regulator for its funds aggregator enterprise.
In his letter, Grover alleges that in 2022-23, co-founder Shashvat Nakrani transferred shares to Koladiya, who had been indicted within the US for wire fraud in 2013. Grover claims that Nakrani transferred 11.7% of the corporate’s shares, valued at roughly Rs 600 crore, to Koladiya with out cost, as acknowledged within the firm’s annual studies.
If discovered responsible, Grover calls for the revocation of all of BharatPe’s licenses and a ban on the corporate’s complete board of administrators from holding positions in any RBI-regulated entity. He additionally requires the blacklisting of enterprise companies related to the fintech startup and the imposition of financial penalties.
BharatPe, which gives QR code-based digital funds and loans, has raised about $600 million (roughly Rs 5,000 crore) to this point and achieved a valuation of $2.7 billion in 2021. The corporate had been in talks to lift $100 million in recent fairness, however the deal didn’t materialize. Moreover, the corporate was looking for to lift Rs 500 crore in debt via non-convertible debentures.
On March 4, Grover despatched a letter to the Delhi Police’s Financial Offences Wing to dismiss the primary data report filed in opposition to him for alleged fraud. He referred to the Deloitte audit report, which discovered no proof of fraud. Beforehand, Grover and his spouse Madhuri Jain had been prohibited from touring to London, and a look-out round was issued in opposition to them on November 6, 2022.



LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here