The great reckoning for Byju’s began in the summer of 2022, sweeping across its empire with the speed of an unpredicted tsunami. Across the Indian subcontinent and North America, public health emergencies receded and physical schools, colleges, and coaching academies threw open their gates. Almost overnight, millions of school children slammed shut their tablets and returned to physical blackboards, in-person teachers, and neighborhood peer groups. The artificial, pandemic-induced digital demand bubble popped. Across Byju’s sales centers, outbound conversion rates plummeted by over sixty percent. Parents who had signed up for multi-year tablet bundles began bombarding customer service helplines and filing formal complaints in consumer courts, demanding full refunds and the cancellation of loan agreements with NBFC lenders.
Worse, the internal financial accounting system of Think & Learn Pvt. Ltd. had collapsed into utter chaos. For over eighteen months, the company failed to file its mandatory audited consolidated financial statements for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2022. Global statutory auditor Deloitte Haskins & Sells found itself locked in bitter, circular disputes with senior management over aggressive revenue recognition practices. The company had been booking long-term multi-year course fees as upfront revenue before services were delivered, while vast sums of uncollected receivables from defaulting students were kept on the balance sheet as performing assets.
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