The virtual call finally kicked off an hour late, as per attendees of the call who spoke to ET on the condition of anonymity. “Random users got in on the call and were writing messages such as ‘we need Byju’, ‘dear investors we need Byju sir’ and ‘he is the soul of the company,’” one of them told ET.
Shareholders told ET there were background whistles and sharp noises to sabotage the EGM. “The day started with a phishing attack to attempt to disrupt the meeting. Attendees received a random notification from an unidentified source that the meeting is cancelled,” one of them added.
“Several Byjus representatives tried to join in without process and ambushed the meeting. When asked to introduce themselves, there was no response, this was clearly an ambush to delay the proceedings but meeting is underway as planned,” another attendee said.
It took the investors about an hour to evict the users causing a disruption, the attendee said. “Byju and management leaked this Zoom information to random individuals,” the person added.
Byju’s did not respond to ET’s request for comments on the matter immediately.
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The EGM was called by a group investors seeking removal of founder Byju Raveendran as the company CEO after raising concerns about management’s failure to enforce the company’s rights related to the acquisition of Aakash Institute and besides agreeing to “onerous” and “prejudicial” loan terms with Davidson Kempner (DK), among other matters.Byju’s on Thursday said Raveendran, his wife and cofounder Divya Gokulnath, and his brother Riju Ravindran will not attend the EGM. The company said in a statement, “this EGM is procedurally invalid, contractually in contravention of our AOA (article of association) and SHA (shareholding agreement), legally on the wrong side of the Companies Act, 2013.”
The three are the only board members at Byju’s parent firm.