According to the latest reports, Indian ed-tech startup, Byju’s, should pay 1983 crore Indian rupees to Blackstone, a global investment management company, within 8 days. The payment to Blackstone is part of the acquisition of Aakash Educational Services by Byju’s in 2021.
Byju’s which was founded in 2011 as an online educational platform became one of the most successful ed-tech startups in the world with a total valuation of more than 20 billion dollars. Byju’s which has been going through some financial and economic crises over the last 12 months decided to acquire Aakash Educational Services Limited (AESL) in 2021.
Aakash which has been providing comprehensive test preparatory services to Indian students for the past many years has been a front runner in private coaching centres for entrance exams such as NEET and JEE.
The acquisition of Aakash by Byju’s is structured in such a way that promoters of Aakash and Blackstone, which is a major shareholder in AESL, would sell their stake in the company to Byju’s. The cash and stock deal which is worth nearly 950 million dollars is one of the largest acquisition deal in the history of the Indian ed-tech sector.
A report released by Moneycontrol state that Byju’s was supposed to pay Blackstone 1983 crore rupees in June 2022 as part of closing the acquisition deal. For some unknown reason, the June deadline was deferred to September 23, 2022. Lawyers who have knowledge about the laws and regulations of acquisition deals told Moneycontrol that Byju’s will have to request the Reserve Bank of India for an extension if they are not able to pay 1983 crore to Blackstone by September 23rd.
Before the acquisition by Byju’s, Blackasdonte had a 37.5% stake in Aakash Educational Services Limited which was purchased by the international investment company in 2019.
Following the culmination of the acquisition deal, both founders of Aakash and Blackstone will become minority shareholders in Byju’s.
For the last few months, there has been a general discussion in the public regarding the financial health of Byju’s. The financial statements of the ed-tech company for the previous financial year were only released a few hours ago.
The latest financial statement and reports which were accessed by media outlets showed that the online education platform suffered a huge loss of more than 4000 crores in the financial year 2021. The financial loss of the company has increased by more than 17 times over the last 12 months. Changes in the accounting process and some others factors related to the realisation of money are said to be major factors for Byju’s suffering huge losses in the financial year.