BYJU’s pays $234 million to clear Blackstone’s dues for Akash Deal

Indian company BYJU’s, on Friday, paid nineteen billion rupees ($234 million) to Blackstone Inc as part of a $950 million to buy Aakash Educational by direct deal. A source directly involved in this news clear everything on Friday.

Thursday’s payment was done by BYJU’s for a 38% stake in the Blackstone-owned Learning Centre chain, which was acquired by BYJU’s in April 2021. According to the source, when it comes to closing the deal, BYJU’s had paid all Aakash’s shareholders excluding Blackstone, when the PE firm had granted to reschedule payments.

During the pandemic, the company has been extraordinarily successful in its online learning initiative and has also attracted various brands to invest based to get a good profit from this. BYJU’s, which is one of the biggest icons of India’s start-up success, deals with great companies such as kids coding platform Tinker, Aakash, US-based Epic, specialized education organization, etc. in the fiscal year ending March 2022.

Under the terms of the agreement, Blackstone will continue to hold a 9.3% stake in BYJU’s. It reports that BYJU’s Private Ltd., an Indian educational technology company, has paid $234 million to clear the dues of Blackstone Group L.P. from a failed deal with Akash Network Pvt. Ltd. The Indian edtech company, BYJU’s, has paid 234 million British pounds to clear Blackstone’s dues for the Akash Deal. This deal will help to reduce the debt of the company, which is currently hovering at around 2.5 billion dollars.

BYJU’s PLC (BYJU)’s shares jumped more than 17% on Monday to Rs. 2,848 after the company said it had agreed to pay about Rs. 2,900 crores ($234 million) in cash to buy back bonds worth over Rs. 5,400 crores held by Blackstone Capital Partners and other investors. Blackstone has announced that it has agreed to sell its investment in BYJU’s, an India-based ed-tech platform, to a consortium led by Premji Invest for $700 Million in cash.

BYJU’s has paid $ 150 million to clear the dues of private equity firm Blackstone Group from the acquisition of Akash Educational Services, two people familiar with the development told Mint.

It is the first instance of BYJU’s raising money from an external source after it became a unicorn in March this year, valuing the company at $1 billion. The deal saw Blackstone selling its entire stake in Akash to BYJU’s. While Blackstone had invested $50 million in Akash in 2016 for a 35% stake, its internal rate of return (IRR) on the exit was around 20%, one of the people cited above said on anonymity.