Ashneer Grover, the co-founder and MD of BharatPe and his wife Madhuri Grover, have sent a legal notice to Uday Kotak, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Kotak Mahindra Bank, accusing the bank and its management for failure to secure financing and allocation of shares in Nykaa’s IPO, Moneycontrol reported citing the notice, which was sent on October 30, 2021.
The development comes days after an audio call was leaked in which Grover was heard allegedly abusing and threatening a Kotak employee over the issue. Though the audio clip went viral last week, Grover claimed it to be fake adding that some scamster was trying to extort money from him.
The notice sought damages for the gains which Grover duo would have otherwise made after subscribing to the shares worth Rs 500 crore in Nykaa and Rs 1 lakh for the cost of the legal notice.
The notice said, “Kotak’s refusal to provide IPO financing to our clients at the eleventh hour has completely crippled our clients’ ability to participate in the Nykaa IPO and deprived them of a business/investment opportunity about which they had informed Kotak more than a month in advance of the launch of the IPO. Had Kotak informed our clients at the very beginning that it would be unable to provide IPO financing for the Nykaa IPO, our clients would have approached other financiers who were ready and willing to provide IPO financing to our clients for this IPO.”
“Kotak’s refusal to provide IPO financing to our clients for the Nykaa IPO constitutes a blatant violation of its legal obligations owed to our clients as their wealth managers. It is also contrary to the repeated representations made to our clients regarding Kotak’s ability to provide IPO financing for the Nykaa IPO (including on the day on which the IPO opened to the public for subscription)," it added.