"Who wrote the Coffee Day founder's suicide note? How did it turn up on WhatsApp groups?'
V.G. Siddhartha saved Infosys, but could nobody on his speed dial save him?
The financial issues leading up to the death of #CafeCoffeeDay founder V.G. Siddhartha exactly a year ago, have been cleared up somewhat by an internal probe, but his carefully crafted suicide note, which ended up in WhatsApp groups on the morning his body was found, needs a separate investigation.
So says K. Giriprakash, the chief of bureau of The Hindu Business Line newspaper in Bangalore, and the author of 'The Vijay Mallya Story’, who was in touch with Siddhartha for a potential biography.
Siddhartha, who underwrote and rescued the Infosys initial public offering (IPO) and went on to found the #CCD chain, was reported missing on the morning of July 30, 2019, after he reportedly stepped out of his car and went for a walk on the bridge across the Netravati river near Mangalore on India’s west coast.
His body was found in the river the following morning, July 31, but a phone photograph of a note bearing his name emerged in between, covering all the bases, and pointing fingers at the Income Tax department and private equity (PE) investors.
In the latest episode of J-POD, the podcast on journalists and journalism, on the first anniversary of Siddhartha’s death, Giriprakash says:
“I am more suspicious of the letter than about his passing away. There should be a separate investigation on the letter.
“The internal probe doesn’t go into the letter at all.
“Nobody finds out who wrote the suicide letter? How did it come out into the public domain? Did he really write the letter? How did it turn up right early morning in all the WhatsApp groups across the country.
When the police landed up at Siddhartha’s home after he was reported missing, they said they had spoken to the family who said the letter was genuine, but a few days later, Cafe Coffee Day averred that it could not attest to its veracity.
An internal investigation commissioned by the company and headed by a former CBI officer, Ashok Malhotra, presented its findings to the Bombay Stock Exchange last week, but the probe report does not throw any light on the authorship of the letter.
“How did this letter, for employees and the board, emerge? This is not from Siddhartha’s laptop. It is a leaked letter. Who leaked it? Who pressed that “send” button? It does’t add up at all.
“[The probe approached the letter] like a theorem. This letter says this, let us find out all the actions that happened. Does it corroborate with what the note says or not. ”
Listen to the full podcast with K. Giriprakash here:
The man who rescued Infosys
“Sivan Securities, which was owned by V.G. Siddhartha, underwrote the Infosys IPO in 1993. When it was undersubscribed, he mopped up Infosys shares which he sold when the company began doing well and stock prices went up. He made it a point every time I met him to say, ‘I rescued Infosys’.”
Siddhartha could have been saved
“Money went missing. He had enough assets. He had Narayana Murthy and Nandan Nilekani on his speed dial. He had enough goodwill in society. If he had waited enough time, he knew enough people who could help him out. There were many ways of paying back. It’s a civil case at the end of the day, not a criminal case.”
Probe report nails Siddhartha
“Cafe Coffee Day is a family-run enterprise. The investigation has exonerated the board members, the auditors, income tax department and the PE funds. It has exonerated all the outsiders and more or less says that it is Siddhartha who was responsible for the mess. You can’t be more neutral than this.”
Didn’t want to give family bad name
“The investigation makes it very clear that Siddhartha had pyramid of debt. If you look at the IT returns, he didn’t have that kind of money. He was banking on some knight in shining armour to rescue him. He didn’t know how to tell the IT department. IT could have filed a case of fraud and taken him to jail.”
What were PE funds doing?
“The report shows how PE Funds kept on giving Siddhartha money because he promised higher returns. Coffee Day is a listed entity. If you take a stake, you have to tell the regulator. They were giving him money and they were not taking a higher stake. So what are they exactly? Do PE funds give loans?”
All in the family
The probe says Mysore Consolidated Coffee Estate, which was privately owned by Siddhartha and his family, had taken Rs 3,500-4,000 crores. His wife Malavika Hegde now sends a letter to all the employees saying she is committed to the organisation and says we will recover the amount.”
Frauds are not uncommon
“These things have happened abroad, and across India. These things are bound to happen because human beings are involved, and they do go astray. There will always be some founder, some managing director...”
CCD is going downhill
“Coffee Day outlets have been in a rundown condition for the last couple of years, even when Siddhartha was around. It needs constant capex (capital expansion). There were red flags which all of us ignored. This report talks about how watchdogs did not bark.”
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