BharatPe row: Ashneer Grover hits back at board Chairman

BharatPe controversy deepens

• Grover filed an arbitration plea in SIAC amid a long-drawn battle between him and the company's board to keep his 9.5% shareholding intact in BharatPe

• BharatPe sacks Madhuri Jain, the company's controller on charges of 'misappropriation of funds

Bengaluru: The controversy in relation to the BharatPe co-founder & MD, Ashneer Grover, refuses to die down as a fresh salvo by Grover towards company's chairman and SBI's former CMD, Rajnish Kumar has made the plot thicker now.

Grover has written to the company's board attacking Kumar and alleged that "the entire facade of the alleged governance review is riddled with premeditation, bias and prejudice".

This comes even as Grover has filed an arbitration plea in the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) amid a long-drawn battle between him and the company's board and shareholders to keep his 9.5 per cent shareholding intact in BharatPe.

Meanwhile, sources in the know said that BharatPe has sacked Madhuri Jain, the company's controller on charges of 'misappropriation of funds. Jain has been in charge of finances at the company valued at $2.8 billion since October 2018, and was also named in the preliminary investigation by Alvarez & Marsal, linking her to the financial irregularities in the startup. Her ESOPs have also been cancelled. Jain is the wife of BharatPe cofounder & MD, Ashneer Grover.

Jain took to Twitter to call out BharatPe's co-founder as well as the CEO Suhail Sameer for alleged misdemeanour. She also alleged that she was treated like an "object" at the place of work and the "male chauvinistic board" supported it.

"And drink and smoke in [the] office and burn the place down! For you have no pain for what @Ashneer Grover built single handedly and you snatched!!," she added. Jain also tagged chairman of the board of directors Rajnish Kumar, a former State Bank of India (SBI) chairperson, in this Twitter thread.

Currently, Grover is willing to leave BharatPe's board only if an investor buys out his 9.5 per cent stake for Rs 4,000 crore, which will translate into $6 billion valuation for the company. BharatPe serves over 75 lakh merchants across 150 cities. Its investors include Tiger Global, Dragoneer Investment Group, Steadfast Capital, Coatue Management, Ribbit Capital and others.