Amid the ongoing BharatPe saga, the company’s former MD and co-founder, Ashneer Grover, has told BusinessLine that CEO Suhail Sameer has not gone to office even for a week in the last quarter and that the “employees are lost”.

Further, questioning Sameer’s contribution to the company’s recently launched gold loan for merchants product, Grover said, “Suhail has made no contribution and is selling lies, as he hasn’t been able to launch even things which I had planned in the last three months.”

BharatPe did not respond to BusinessLine queries on the matter. However, a source close to the company said, “Sameer goes to the office everyday unless he is travelling or is in a meeting. He is the most hands-on CXO I have worked with and is also very prompt with his replies.”

Mudslinging continues

Expanding on the projects that Sameer has allegedly not been able to launch, Grover said four products were envisioned and finalised by him with the team and they just needed to be executed and launched. These include the Merchant Stock Option Plan (supposed to have gone live by January, according to Grover), three-month customer interest-free EMI product on BharatPe app, auto loans with PostPe and UNITY Small Finance Bank app.

Grover also questioned co-founder Shashvat Nakrani’s diminished role in the company’s announcements. He said Nakrani has been made subservient over time by Sameer, “... as he has something on Shashvat (Nakrani) because of which he controls him.”

Grover believes that the company-wide email announcing the board’s decision on him no longer being a founder, employee or director in BharatPe, was not written by Nakrani. “He can’t write that email, he is just signing off on whatever he is being told to,” he added. Nakrani could not be reached for comments. 

On the gold loan scheme

BharatPe had launched gold loans for its merchant partners on March 14, in response to which, Grover said the company has peddled another lie that the scheme was launched under Suhail. “I had brought Nikhilesh Govil (former colleague from Kotak, PCJ) a year back to build a gold loan business. It was launched by the both of us six months back and expanded to three cities — Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.” Govil’s LinkedIn profile mentions his current designation as the Head of Gold Loans at BharatPe.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source told BusinessLine, “Govil was indeed hired by the company about a year back and reports to Chief Revenue Officer Nishit Sharma. However, things like product launch and set-up take time. Official product launches are usually preceded by beta and pilot launch, which is what has happened in this case.”

In a statement released on Monday, Sameer had noted that gold loans for merchants’ product was in pilot for two months.

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