A day after Ashneer Grover, the embattled co-founder of BharatPe, sought removal of CEO Suhail Sameer from the board, the fintech startup’s other founder Shashvat Nakrani has thrown his weight behind the chief executive, saying the official continues to enjoy his confidence.
Nakrani said he has neither given his consent nor sought the removal of Sameer from the board and that he fully supports continuance of the CEO in the BharatPe board.
Grover had written to the board seeking the removal of Sameer from the position of director. Citing a clause in the shareholders agreement and the articles of association (AoA), Grover said he is withdrawing the nomination of Sameer as director. Sameer was jointly nominated by Grover and Nakrani as a director in August last year. Therefore, observers feel that his removal will require the nod of both the founders.
“I have neither given my consent nor sought the removal of Suhail Sameer from the board of BharatPe. News reports suggesting this are incorrect… I can confirm that I was one of the two joint nominees in the appointment resolution of Suhail Sameer as the CEO and Board member of BharatPe, and he continues to enjoy my support,’’ PTI quoted Nakrani as saying.
According to the company’s AoA (clauses 91.3 and 91.7), Suhail Sameer, the CEO, was jointly nominated by two founders — Ashneer Grover and Shashvat Nakrani, as the founders’ nominee on the board.
The board of BharatPe currently comprises nine members — the two founders, one joint founder nominee (CEO), four investor nominees, and two professional independent directors (Rajnish Kumar and Kewal)
The current term for the CEO is for five years and upon completion can be re-confirmed. Sameer was earlier with the RP-Sanjiv Goenka group and also at McKinsey.
He was also the managing partner at OTP Venture Partners, which invests in early-stage companies.
Last month, BharatPe had announced the appointment of Alvarez & Marshal (A&M) to do an independent audit of its internal processes and systems. Initial investigations done by A&M has shown certain questionable practices at the start-up. On Friday, BharatPe had said in a statement that its board has not received any interim or final report from the consultant. A Moneycontrol report quoting, Kumar the former chairman of SBI said that the board will launch corrective action based on the outcome of the report by A&M. He added that the board is yet to receive the report from the consultant.
Amid speculations (which have been denied by the company) that he may be fired by the BharatPe board, Grover, who holds around 9.5 per cent is also understood to have sought a valuation of Rs 4,000 crore for his holding if the investors want him to leave the company.
Grover, who hosts the Shark Tank India show, was in the news after an audio clip emerged online where he allegedly abused and gave death threat to an employee from Kotak Mahindra Bank as he could not get funding for the IPO of FSN E-Commerce Ventures Ltd. Grover has however, said that the audio clip is fake.
