Aakash Educational Services withholds share allotment to Byju’s parent over compliance concerns
AESL’s board concluded that the Rs 25 crore remitted by TLPL did not comply with FEMA norms, the Companies Act, or the External Commercial Borrowings (ECB) guidelines.
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Aakash Educational Services Limited (AESL) has reportedly withheld the allotment of shares to Think & Learn Pvt Ltd (TLPL), the parent entity of Byju’s, citing compliance irregularities linked to the Rs 25 crore that TLPL deposited as part of AESL’s Rs 100 crore rights issue.
According to a report by Livemint, AESL’s board concluded that the Rs 25 crore remitted by TLPL did not comply with FEMA norms, the Companies Act, or the External Commercial Borrowings (ECB) guidelines. As a result, the board decided not to proceed with the allotment.
AESL recently completed its Rs 100 crore rights issue, approving share allotments to the Manipal Group and Beeaar Investco Pte Ltd, which contributed Rs 58 crore and Rs 16 crore respectively.
TLPL, which is currently undergoing corporate insolvency resolution, has opposed the rights issue before the NCLT, NCLAT, and the Supreme Court. Despite this opposition, the company still deposited Rs 25 crore in an attempt to subscribe to the issue, AESL noted.
In a separate development, the Supreme Court of India dismissed an appeal filed by Byju Raveendran challenging the April 17 judgement of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) regarding the settlement of claims by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
The NCLAT’s Chennai bench had earlier refused to treat BCCI’s settlement as a pre-Committee of Creditors (CoC) arrangement, directing that the proposal be placed before the CoC of TLPL instead.
Once valued at $22 billion and considered India’s most celebrated edtech unicorn, Byju’s is now confronting multiple lawsuits, insolvency proceedings, and a severe liquidity crisis. Several investors now estimate the company’s valuation to have fallen to around $1 billion.
