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International accounting firm Deloitte has resigned as auditor to Byju’s, India’s most highly valued start-up, saying the education technology company had failed to hand over any financial results for the 2021-22 business year.
The auditor said it had “not received any communication” from Byju’s on the “status of audit readiness of the financial statements and the underlying books and records for the year ended March 31, 2022”, and had therefore been unable to start its work.
A spokesperson for Byju’s did not address Deloitte’s claim that the company had failed to hand over financial results but said it had appointed accountant BDO to replace Deloitte.
Deloitte’s resignation is the latest blow for the once soaring start-up. Byju’s counts China’s Tencent and US hedge fund Tiger Global among its investors. The Indian start-up however has struggled to convert booming interest in digital learning during the height of the pandemic into profits and has become embroiled in a bitter legal dispute in the US over a $1.2bn term loan.
The audit of Byju’s’ 2021-2022 financial year is “long delayed”, said Deloitte in a letter to the Bengaluru-based company’s board, adding that the results were due in September.
Byju’s said in regards to BDO replacing Deloitte that the firms had a “meticulously planned transition timeline”.
“The audit of most subsidiaries has already been completed,” Byju’s claimed, “setting a positive precedent for the ongoing collaboration with the new auditors.”
