'Delivering nothing': Ashneer Grover slams ex-SBI chief Rajnish Kumar

BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover attacked former State Bank of India (SBI) chairman Rajnish Kumar and said 'delivering nothing and creating a deflection to hide behind is the easiest'

BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover slammed former State Bank of India (SBI) chairman Rajnish Kumar on Friday for "delivering nothing and creating a deflection to hide behind."

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Grover said, "Building a big business from scratch is the hardest thing to do. Inheriting a business and keeping it running at the same level is still hard. Delivering nothing and creating a deflection to hide behind is the easiest. Well done, Rajnish Kumar [well technically, 'nothing' has been done, but still]! But I doubt your world record of destroying $8 billion at SBI and $3 billion at BharatPe back-to-back as chairman can be hidden behind a smoke screen of cases against me. Especially after you make it an insurmountable hat-trick of billion dollar write-downs with Byju's next."
 

Grover had previously labelled Kumar's hiring a mistake in a tweet last year. "Not only because of what transpired – but because I overlooked data. Under Rajnish as CMD, SBI stock tanked 25 per cent in 3 years. That's $8 billion of value destruction. After he left, it went to Rs 570 [up 200 per cent]. Data is never dogla [hypocritical]!," Grover said in a tweet.

Rajnish Kumar was appointed chairman of the BharatPe board in October 2021.

BharatPe's value has been destroyed by Kumar, according to Grover, who also claimed that Kumar led BharatPe to a $3 billion write-off.

In a comparison chart shared by Grover, he showed that the company saw no growth or negative impact in any parameter, including market share, investments, and more after 2022.

This development comes after a public spat between BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover and CapitalMind founder and CEO Deepak Shenoy.

Amid reports of the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) probe on BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover for allegedly siphoning off funds from the company on the pretext of recruitment services, Grover had a verbal spat with CapitalMind founder and CEO Deepak Shenoy.

Deepak Shenoy wrote on X, "Ashneer Grover apparently siphoned out funds to his family in the name of recruitment services - a well-known mechanism to take money out. So stupidly done too - they backdated invoices with bank accounts that didn't even exist at that date!"

He added that as per news reports, more than Rs 53 crore was paid to such "sham" companies owned or connected to the Grovers. "These companies didn't even file GST though they charged it!] which is what brought the whole house down. I wonder if investors in startups have at least a policy saying we'll do an annual independent review of recruitment-related payments and links to founders... this kind of 'taking it out' is fairly common," the CapitalMind boss wrote.

Hitting out at him, Ashneer Grover re-shared a tweet in which he claimed that at the end of the BharatPe row, he would be the "last man standing".