Priority for Byju's is reduce cash burn, improve governance : ex-SBI chief Kumar

livemint.com:

MUMBAI : Former State Bank of India chairman Rajnish Kumar, who is advisor to edtech firm Byju's, believes that the company's main priority is to reduce cash burn, settle the term loan, and focus on growth. Kumar is also chairman of fintech BharatPe. In an interview with Mint at the Digital Lenders Association of India (DLAI) conclave last week, Kumar laid down the road map for Byju's and said that there is urgent need to sort out governance issues.

Edited excerpts. I am hopeful because there is no problem with the product. So, if the product is good, then the only issues which need to be sorted are the governance ones. If governance issues are sorted, then there's a future for Byju's.

FY23 financials are under audit, and they will be out. A lot of effort is going on to reduce the cash burn. Issues with investors and the term loan must get sorted, and then focus needs to be on growth and content.

Attention should not be on legal battles but on growth. My advice to everybody is that transparency, honesty, and integrity of the financials, is all that matters. And no sustainable business can be built, unless you take care of all the stakeholders, whether it is your investors, your employees, or your people.

In this whole saga of Byju's or BharatPe, it came out very clearly there are not enough people who had sufficient experience to guide and that is the biggest learning. That if there are young people who have ideas, who have energy, then there also has to be someone to guide them. So, that was the missing piece.

BhartPe, in terms of its governance structure and in terms of compliances, a lot of ground has been covered and there are no major issues. There was no major issue in our financials as of March 2023. It's a clean