Byju’s is pushing Aakash to the brink

Why read this story?

Editor's note: Last year, towards the end of June, Byju Raveendran reached out to shareholders in Aakash Educational Services Ltd. It was around the time they were supposed to receive the final tranche of payment for their stake in the test-prep company that edtech giant Byju’s acquired in 2021 for $1 billion in cash and stock. Everyone from the Chaudhry family (the promoters of AESL) to private equity firm Blackstone was waiting for the money to be wired. Except Byju’s didn’t have any.  “Byju said there was a liquidity problem,” says a person in the know, asking not to be named. “The company was expecting funds from somewhere, which got stuck. As a result, there weren’t enough funds to make the final payment.” This was a rude surprise. Acquisitions like that of AESL are planned with a long-term view, with visibility on multiple sources of funding in case one of them falls through. If at all things go haywire and you find yourself in a bind, you alert the other party well in advance. That’s not what happened. AESL shareholders had been …