VG Siddhartha missing: FULL TEXT of CCD founder's emotion filled letter; says fought for long time, gave up today

Owner of the iconic Indian coffee chain, Cafe Coffee Day, VG Siddhartha went missing near Mangaluru on Monday. The son-in-law of former Karnataka Chief Minister SM Krishna, Siddhartha reportedly got off his car near the Netravati River off Mangaluru on Monday evening and has been missing ever since. Before leaving his house, the CCD owner wrote a letter in which he stated that he fought for a long time but gave up as he couldn't take more pressure. "I fought for a long time but today I gave up as I could not take any more pressure from one of the private equity partners forcing me to buy back shares, a transaction I had partially completed six months ago borrowing a large sum of money from a friend," the letter read which was addressed to the Board of Directors of the Cafe Coffee Day family.

Here is the FULL TEXT of CCD owner VG Siddhartha's letter:

The search for the business tycoon is on as more than 200 policemen and divers on about 25 boats have joined the operations. The deputy commissioner of police said sniffer dogs have also been pressed into service. According to the complaint filed by Siddhartha's driver Basavaraj Patil, the CCD owner had got down from the car on the bridge across the Nethrvathi river and asked him to wait at the other end of it as he wanted to walk for a while but did not turn up even an hour later.

Police suspect Siddhartha would have jumped into the flowing river from the bridge as the driver found him missing in the area. Meanwhile, the shares of Coffee Day Enterprises went down by 20 percent on Tuesday. CCD shares traded at Rs 153.40 per share on the NSE.

Siddhartha had recently sold his entire 20 per cent equity stake in the city-based software major Mindtree Ltd to the Mumbai-based Larsen & Toubro (L&T) for Rs 3,300 crore at Rs 980 per share of Rs 10 face value on March 18.

He was also talking to Coca Cola to sell Cafe Coffee Day. 

VG Siddhartha was under debt and was shedding a number of businesses over the recent months to raise funds.

Full Text of VG Siddhartha letter to Board and Employees

VG Siddhartha

"To our Board of Directors and Coffee Day family,

After 37 years, with strong commitment to hard work, having directly clearly 30,000 jobs in our companies and their subsidiaries, as well as another 20,000 jobs in technology companies where I have been a large shareholder since its founding, I have failed to create the write profitable business model despite my best efforts. 

I would like to say I gave it my all. I am very sorry to let down all the people that put their trust in me. I fought for a long time but today I gave up as i couldn't take any more pressure from one of the private equity partners forcing me to buyback shares, a transaction I had partially completed six months ago by borrowing a large sum of money from a friend. Tremendous pressure from other vendors let to me succumbing to the situation. There was a lot of harassment from the previous DG Income Tax in the form of attache our shares on two separate occasions to block our Mindtree deal and then taking position of our Coffee Day shares, although the revised returns have been filed by us. This was very unfair and has lead to the serious liquidity crunch. 

I sincerely request each of you to be strong into continue running these businesses with new management. I am solely responsible for all mistakes. Every financial transaction is my responsibility. My team, auditors and senior management are totally unaware of all my transactions. The law should hold me and only me accountable, as I have withheld this information from everybody including my family. 

My intention was never to cheat or mislead anybody, I have failed as an entrepreneur. This is my sincere submission, I hope someday you will understand, forgive and pardon me. 

I have enclosed a list of our assets and tentative value of each assets. As seen below, our assets outweigh our liabilities and can help repay everybody." 

(Zee Business does not vouch for the veracity of this purported letter written by VG Siddhartha)