Prosus, a major tech investor, has reduced the value of its stake in Byju’s, pushing the company’s worth to less than $3 billion. This substantial drop signifies an 86% decrease from its prior valuation of $22 billion during the previous funding round.
This isn’t the first time Prosus has devalued Byju’s. The company was last valued at over $22 billion in October 2022, but Prosus initially lowered its value to $5.97 billion in November of the previous year. Recently, Russell Dreisenstock, Prosus’ representative on Byju’s board, resigned, citing concerns about reporting and governance structures.
The series of departures from the board coincided with issues within Byju’s, including delayed financial results and the resignation of their auditor, Deloitte. Notably, other board members, such as Vivian Wu from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and GV Ravishankar from Peak XV Partners, also stepped down. Byju’s faced further challenges as the Enforcement Directorate issued a show cause notice regarding a FEMA violation case involving Think and Learn Private Limited and Byju Raveendran.
The company has been criticized for delays in settling payments to laid-off employees. Additionally, Byju’s resolved an issue with Davidson Kempner in November through a deal by Manipal Group chairman Ranjan Pai, purchasing the debt investment for Rs 1,400 crore.
Byju’s proposed a plan to repay its $1.2 billion term loan B within six months, intending an initial payment of $300 million in three months. To secure funds for this repayment, the company plans to conduct a strategic review of its assets. This includes putting up Great Learning and Epic, two key platforms, for sale, potentially yielding the company about $1 billion.