He has also alleged that Kumar hiked his salary for his services to Rs 1.5 crore per year, three times compared to his initial fees at the time of joining the board in October 2021.
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Grover has said Kumar needs to be investigated by the central bank for his involvement in the entire tussle over company shares between Grover and his other cofounder Bhavik Koladiya.
The letter, dated March 9, is the second written by Grover to the central bank, accusing BharatPe board, its investors and its management of committing fraud and lying to the regulator regarding the ultimate beneficial ownership of the company’s shares. The previous letter was written on March 6.
Additionally, to build credibility around the accusations against the company he had cofounded, Grover pointed out that he had been given a clean chit by Deloitte, which was the statutory auditor of Resilient Innovations, the parent entity of BharatPe.
Grover has also pointed out that the company is being investigated by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and a notice under Section 206 has been issued to the company in January 2024. ET wrote about it on February 6. The regulator should investigate the company irrespective of the legal battles between himself and the company, he added.
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Grover, who had resigned from the company in March 2022, sought an investigation to ascertain whether the company’s board and investors had “warehoused” Koladiya’s shares for a specific period of time, only to bring him back after the requisite approvals were received from the central bank.Warehousing refers to accumulating shares for a period of time before an entity acquires a significant chunk in the company.
Grover also questioned whether the regulator would have deemed BharatPe fit for a 49% stake in Unity Small Finance Bank or even allowed it to acquire a controlling stake in non-banking finance company Liquiloans, if Koladiya was part of the company’s cap table during the time of the licence application. BharatPe also has an in-principle approval from the regulator for the payments aggregator business through its wholly-owned subsidiary Resilient Payments.
Post-investigation, if BharatPe’s management is found guilty, Grover has requested the regulator to blacklist the entire board of directors of the fintech and also sought cancellation of licences owned by the company.
BharatPe, which offers QR code-based digital payments along with consumer and merchant loans, has raised about $600 million (about Rs 5,000 crore) till date. In 2021 it achieved a valuation of $2.7 billion. The company had been in talks since last year to raise about $100 million in fresh equity, but the deal did not materialise. ET reported on December 19 last year that the company was looking to raise about Rs 500 crore in debt through non-convertible debentures.
BharatPe has a 49% stake in Unity Small Finance Bank, has majority shareholding in Liquiloans, and has an in-principle approval for an online payments business.