New Delhi: Online education company Byju’s has not paid $40 million in interest on a huge loan that was due on Monday, breaching the deadline.
One of the world’s largest education startups also decided not to make further payments on a $1.2 billion loan, reports Bloomberg citing sources.
The decision for non-payment has to do with its continuing dispute with lenders.
A day after the deadline for payment, Byju’s reportedly said that it has filed complaint regarding the loan in the New York Supreme Court.
Referring to the $1.2 billion, the company reportedly said that ‘Given that legal proceedings are now on foot in both Delaware and New York, it is clear that the entire TLB is disputed’.
Until the dispute is decided by the court, the company said, Byju’s will not make any further payment to the TLB lenders.
The background to the dispute as per reports is Byju’s has been trying to restructure the loan striking a deal with its lenders.
However, creditors are pressing for quick payment of the loan, while scrapping the ‘long-running negotiations’.
The report by Bloomberg citing sources said that Byju’s has not paid the interest as of 6 pm in New York on June 5.
Meanwhile, lenders are reportedly considering options on ‘to address a potential payment default’.
Former teacher Byju Raveendran’s eponymous company has run into rough weather following slump in online education after pandemic-era boom.
The son of educators, Raveendran founded the company in 2015 and piloted it to become the most valuable startup in India.
A series of acquisitions and burgeoning demand in online education made the company attractive to major lenders.
Alongside its crisis, the company failed to meet deadlines to file financial accounts and later India’s financial agency raided its offices over violations of foreign-exchange policies.