Loan Terms: Byju’s, lenders miss deadline to rework loan terms

NEW DELHI: Troubled edtech startup Byju’s and its lenders have missed an initial deadline to rework the terms of its $1.2 billion term loan. The steering committee of the ad hoc term loan lenders, who collectively own more than 85% of the loan, had earlier said that the process would be closed before August 3. dIn a statement, Byju’s said that a meeting with the lenders is scheduled early next week. The discussions are progressing well in the right direction and expected to close at the earliest, the company claimed.

“No deadline has been missed as August 3 was merely a hopeful date that was likely to be scheduled for a sign off,” a company spokesperson added. A spokesperson for the lenders did not respond to queries.
The $1.2 billion loan, which Byju’s had raised in 2021 to fund its overseas expansion, has been at the centre of a dispute between the firm and its lenders that had escalated in the past months and took a legal turn. Earlier this year, the lenders had dragged the firm’s subsidiary Byju’s Alpha to a US court over alleged hiding of $500 million. In June, Byju’s sued the lenders in the New York Supreme Court challenging acceleration of the term loan B.

The successful execution of the term loan amendment “would immediately solve for the loan’s acceleration and end all open litigation while avoiding further enforcement actions,” the lenders had said in a statement issued last month. Reportedly, a creditors’ lawsuit against Byju’s as part of the dispute is due for trial in a US court on Friday. Once a celebrated startup , Byju’s is battling a series of crises .