Mumbai: Lenders have accused India’s leading edutech startup company Byju’s of allegedly hiding $533 million in a three-year-old hedge fund. Some lenders allege in a lawsuit that Byju transferred millions of dollars last year to the fund, an investment firm founded by William C. Morton, according to documents filed in Miami-Dade County Court.
Morton started this investment firm at the age of 23 and thus had no specific training in investing. Apart from this, according to the lenders engaged in recovery of their money, this fund had once claimed that its main business was pancake restaurants in Miami.
The report said lenders said Morton’s fund received money despite his apparent lack of formal training in investing. According to papers filed in the court, since Byju sent the money, the luxury cars have been registered in the name of a 2023 Ferrari Roma, a 2020 Lamborghini Huracan EVO, and a 2014 Rolls-Royce Wraith-Morton.
Byju’s has made considerable efforts to conceal the whereabouts of the borrower’s $533 million for the acknowledged purpose of hindering and delaying creditors, the lenders argued in a Miami-Dade County court filing. However, the Byju spokesperson said that as a commercially prudent borrower and like any other large corporate treasury, Byju Alpha (US subsidiary) has invested over a hundred billion dollars in funds with high security fixed income instruments. A Byju spokesperson said our credit agreement with the lenders does not restrict or restrict the movement or investment of funds disbursed under it.
