Mangalore to Miami: BYJU'S, a mystery middleman, and the curious case of the missing $533 million
Court documents shed more light on the $533 million that vanished from a $1.2 billion loan BYJU'S defaulted on, revealing the role of a controversial Mangalore-born businessman in orchestrating the edtech's massive offshore financial movements and adding a new dimension to its ongoing crisis.
Nikhil Patwardhan
Wednesday February 05, 2025 , 3 min Read
In the ongoing saga of BYJU'S financial issues, perhaps the most glaring loose end in the tale is the case of $533 million that has seemingly vanished out of a loan of $1.2 billion the edtech company has defaulted on.
Some semblance of the complex web of transactions pertaining to the missing cash began to emerge in September 2022 when US-based portfolio management company Benchmark Investments filed a lawsuit against a financial consultancy and its partner for allegedly making false claims about its involvement in a financial transaction. The transaction in question was the one between BYJU'S and an obscure Delaware-based fund, Camshaft Capital.
In the lawsuit, Benchmark said that financial consultancy HarryMax Consultants and a manager in the consultancy, Brett Borgersen, claimed they were owed money for facilitating transactions between BYJU'S and Camshaft Capital.
Borgersen, in separate filings, said he had been contacted by a Rupin Banker from London-based “commercial process outsourcing” company OCI Limited, seeking his help to identify a third party that could facilitate a potential transaction worth $318 million between OCI and BYJU'S.
Banker, the scion of an influential family from Mangalore, was the structural division head for OCI, responsible for the firm’s operations in India and Southeast Asia, and seemingly chosen by BYJU'S and its associates to facilitate the usage of a significant portion of the now-infamous $1.2-billion loan.
Borgersen claimed, per the court filings, that he contacted Robert Forte of Benchmark, a broker-dealer registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to help facilitate the transaction.
They identified the Miami-based Camshaft Capital Fund to facilitate BYJU'S' transactions with OCI.
Camshaft was entrusted with the role of intermediary between BYJU'S Alpha (a wholly-owned Delaware subsidiary of Think and Learn Private Ltd, the parent company of BYJU'S) and OCI Ltd.
BYJU'S Founder and CEO Byju Raveendran claimed in an affidavit filed with the Delaware Bankruptcy Court on October 8, 2024 that OCI was managing the financial solutions and expenditures for the company, including advertising expenses for the then-upcoming FIFA World Cup in Qatar. BYJU'S was one of the official sponsors of the tournament.
The $1.2 billion loan that BYJU'S defaulted was provided by Glas Trust, comprised of a consortium of financial institutions. Glas Trust hired a private investigator, Michael Gallo, to investigate the missing funds.
Gallo told the Delaware Bankruptcy Court in July 2024 that it would be an understatement to say that the choice of Camshaft was a curious one as the fund operated out of an International House of Pancakes (IHOP) outlet in Miami's Little Havana neighbourhood.
On one of its websites, the company listed another address—a WeWork facility—where, Gallo revealed in court, "Camshaft leased a single, sparsely furnished room, with a 'CAMSHAFT' placard on the door".
The CapTable’s investigation, which included sifting through hundreds of pages of court filings, revealed that Camshaft’s questionable credentials were merely the tip of the $533 million iceberg. Read the full exclusive story in The CapTable to know more.