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Cafe Coffee Day shares drop 20% as founder VG Siddhartha goes missing

Siddhartha, also the son-in-law of former Karnataka Chief Minister SM Krishna was last seen on the Netravati River bridge.

Cafe Coffee Day shares drop 20% as founder VG Siddhartha goes missing

Cafe Coffee Day (Photo: Twitter | @CharlieGulshan)

Shares of Coffee Day Enterprises dropped 20 per cent as its founder-owner VG Siddhartha has gone missing since Monday evening in Karnataka’s Mangaluru.

Coffee Day Enterprises slumped as much as 20 per cent to 153.40 rupees, their lowest level on record. The broader S&P BSE Sensex index was up 0.4 per cent, according to a Bloomberg report.

VG Siddhartha, also the son-in-law of former Karnataka Chief Minister SM Krishna was last seen on the Netravati River bridge. He reportedly got down from his car on the bridge and asked his driver Basavaraj Patil to go ahead and wait.

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When he didn’t come back after an hour the driver contacted police.

According to a statement by the driver, they were going to Sakleshpur from Bengaluru in a Toyota Innova, when in the middle of the journey Siddhartha asked him to go to Mangaluru.

The police are carrying out search operations with the help of local fishermen and dog squad.

Meanwhile, a letter has emerged reportedly written by VG Siddhartha to the management and employees of CCD in which he has expressed unhappiness over not creating “the right profitable business”.

The letter also talks about the harassment he had allegedly faced at the hands of tax officials.

Earlier in March, Siddhartha sold his entire 20 per cent equity stake in consultancy firm Mindtree to engineering and construction company Larsen & Toubro Ltd for Rs. 3,300 crore.

In September 2017, the offices and residence of CCD’s founder-owner and its other officials in Bengaluru, Chikkamagaluru, Hassan and Mysuru across Karnataka were searched by income tax sleuths.

The first Café Coffee Day was set up in India in 1996. Internationally, CCD has a presence in Vienna, Czech Republic, Malaysia Nepal and Egypt.

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