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Ahead of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) hearing on Tuesday, Edtech company Byju's has paid partial salaries to employees for March. Sources told ANI that Byju's founder and CEO Raveendran has raised debt in personal capacity to pay part of March salaries of employees.
Teachers, staff at lower levels are paid 100 percent of salary. The development comes just before the April 23rd hearing at the NCLT on the oppression and mismanagement plea filed by four investors of Byju's. The plea was filed by Peak XV Partners, Prosus NV, General Atlantic, and Sofina SA, who opposed the company's decision to raise USD 200 million rights issue. A source close to the company told ANI that Byju Raveendran, the founder and CEO of the company has taken on personal debt to make payroll for March. This comes as the funds raised from the recently concluded rights issue is tied up in an escrow account as per orders from NCLT, till the disposal of the above mentioned case. "The company has made salary payments in the range of 100 to 50 percent to all employees. Teachers and lower salary grade staff have been paid in full and the rest have received at least 50 percent of their dues for March," the source told ANI. Byju's is trying its best to make payroll for all employees, teachers and teaching support staff as they are the backbone of the edtech company and hence their salaries are paid on priority. Salaries of some staffs for the second half of February are still due with the company. Byju's had disbursed a part of the pending salaries for all employees for February in the middle of March and promised to pay the balance once it is allowed to use the funds from the rights issue. Byju's has also laid off over 10,000 employees in the last 12 months as it battled a double blow of slowing demand for online learning services and slow-down in venture capital funding. Since then, its investor on board have left, citing differences with Raveendran. Since then, the company has tried to fix some of the problems since. Its early investor Ranjan Pai ploughed in some capital and sets up an advisory council with veterans such as Mohandas Pai and Rajnish Kumar. But Mohandas Pai too has decided to step down recently and the company is in talks to divest assets like Great Learning and Epic. (ANI)
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