More Ola shenanigans

Why read this story?

Editor's note: It was a simple question to begin with and one where my expectations were low. I mean shareholders rarely complain about their businesses. They think doing so makes them look bad and they care about these things. So they avoid discussing them altogether. It is worse when the subject is the co-founder of a certain unicorn based in Bengaluru. The question? Well, it’s as simple as this: “What is happening with Bhavish Aggarwal? I heard he has been buying equity from his employees at not so great prices.” “Broadly the chap is being super non-transparent,” comes the immediate reply from a shareholder in Ola Cabs’s parent ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd. We are chatting on WhatsApp and there’s more typing. “He created electric out of thin air. Ditched his co-founder, early investors and others and took money from a select few. And he is now buying secondary at some hundred different price points. And no one really knows anything or who is selling at what price.” If you’ve ever been to a place that stinks, you know the feeling. A second …