After A Year-Long Delay, BYJU’S To File FY22 Financials Later This Week

After a delay of over a year, edtech major BYJU’S is set to file its financial statements for the fiscal year 2021-22 (FY22) later this week. 

The company told Inc42 that the edtech major has finally completed the audit of all group subsidiaries and will likely incorporate the audited financials into its consolidated report this week. 

“The audit of all the group subsidiaries have been completed and adopted. Think and Learn Private Ltd, the parent, is expected to adopt the consolidated results this week to factor in certain positive developments in the company,” said a company spokesperson.

It must be noted that amid a looming debt crisis, cash crunch and a slew of other controversies, BYJU’S has also been facing investors’ ire over the delay in filing its FY22 financials.

The development was first reported by Bloomberg.

The new deadline comes a fortnight after the company missed its previous deadline of September 30 to report its financials. It had informed its shareholders and lenders that it would file its FY22 financial statements by September 2023 but later said that FY22 financials would be adopted by the company’s board in the second week of October.

This is not the first time that the company has delayed filing its financial reports. Earlier, it filed its FY21 numbers after a delay of nearly a year in September last year. Its loss ballooned 20X year-on-year (YoY) to INR 4,588 Cr in FY21. 

Since then, the supposedly most-valued startup in the country has been plagued by a slew of issues. With the entire ecosystem gripped by a funding winter, the company undertook streamlining of its operations, which saw 4,000-5,000 employees being laid off. It has also shelved expansion plans as newly-appointed India CEO Arjun Mohan began carrying out a full-scale restructuring of operations. 

The edtech major has also been pummelled by a debt crisis related to the $1.2 Bn Term Loan B (TLB) that it took in November 2021. The company and its lenders have been locked in a tussle over a missed interest payment on the TLB and the legal battle that has erupted since then over the matter. 

As this saga pans out, the company’s acquisition spree at the top of the capital boom in 2021 has failed to yield any substantial results. The decacorn is said to be scouting buyers to offload two of its acquired companies – Great Learning and Epic – for a sum of $800 Mn-$1 Bn to repay the loan.

Meanwhile, the delayed financials and regulatory scrutiny surrounding the matter led to the resignation of Deloitte Haskins & Sells as the edtech major’s auditor earlier this year. Three of BYJU’S board members – Peak XV Partners’ GV Ravishankar, Prosus’ Russell Dreisenstock, and Vivian Wu of Chan Zuckerberg Initiative – also tendered their resignations this year. 

Even as stakeholders patiently wait for FY22 results, there seems to be no clarity for FY23 results. 

Not just this, BYJU’S has also been under the radar of government agencies ranging from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs over delayed financials to a consumer protection body for allegedly misselling courses.