Ed-tech major Byju’s on Saturday said it will convene a board meeting in the second week of October for approval and adoption of accounts for FY22. Earlier, on June 24, its chief financial officer Ajay Goel had told shareholders that the audited financial results for FY22 will be declared by the end of September.
The much-delayed FY22 results will also be presented to some of its key investors, like erstwhile board members, including Peak XV Partners and Prosus. The board of directors, along with the advisory council and certain invitees will meet to formally adopt the audited accounts, Byju’s said.
Byju’s auditor BDO and the management held a meeting on Saturday after which a notice was issued to the shareholders.
The filing of Byju’s financial results with the registrar of companies (RoC) has been a key concern among investors.
Another major concern is the resolution of terms of payment of the $1.2-billion term loan B (TLB), which Byju’s had raised in November 2021 with a five-year tenure, but the lenders have revised the terms of the loan, wanting earlier payment. FE had recently reported that Byju’s will see its interest outgo on the $1.2-billion term loan further rising because Fidelity Advisor, one of the lenders in the consortium, has almost doubled the rate to 15.5% in a year’s time, according to its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Fidelity Advisor was charging 7.01% in July 2022 and had subsequently raised it to 10.7% in January this year.
Byju’s had come under scrutiny from the ministry of corporate affairs for filing its FY21 results also 18 months beyond the prescribed timeline. It had reported a net loss of Rs 4,588 crore from Rs 231.69 crore in FY20. The company’s total revenues during the year saw a marginal decline of 3.32% to Rs 2,428.39 crore. The huge jump in losses during the year was due to the deferral of 40% of revenues to subsequent years, but costs not getting deferred.
Currently, former State Bank of India chairman Rajnish Kumar and ex-Infosys CFO, TV Mohandas Pai are on Byju’s advisory council. They joined the council on July 13 to advise the firm on the composition of its board and governance structure.
The ed-tech firm recently vacated its largest office space in Bengaluru to cut costs. It’s also exploring sale of two of its assets—upskilling platform Great Learning and California-based reading platform, Epic—to generate around $800 million to $1 billion to repay the $1.2-billion term loan in the next six months. The company is also in talks with Abu Dhabi Investment Authority to raise fresh capital.
Its new CEO Arjun Mohan is in the process of restructuring the company’s businesses, which also includes cutting the headcount by 4,000-4,500 people to reduce costs.