Forbes recently published a detailed story on how Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu had allegedly abandoned his wife Pramila Srinivasan and their special-needs son and is keeping them from receiving their share of assets. Today, Vembu took to Twitter to respond to the allegations calling the article ‘slander’ and his wife’s account ‘complete fiction’.
Furthermore, Vembu has blamed his paternal uncle for the ‘malicious rumours’.
The news report claimed that Vembu, in cold blood, got rid of a huge amount of his stake at Zoho during their ongoing divorce case in California where the family lived for years. The transaction moved Zoho’s intellectual property to India and Vembu shifted a major chunk of 35% of shares to his sister (Radha) and her husband (Sekar).
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“He decided to make fictitious transfers or ‘sales’ of our most valuable community asset to his family members without their paying any cash or other consideration, and without ever telling me or asking my permission,” Pramila declared in a court filing earlier this year in January.
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Denying the occurrence of this transaction, Vembu assured in the Twitter thread, “I never ever transferred my shares in the company to anyone else. I lived in the US for the first 24 years of our 27-year history and much of what constitutes the company was built in India. That is reflected in the ownership.”
The Forbes report included the court filings made by Pramila. According to sources, Vembu’s sister Radha owns a 47.8% stake valued at around $2.2 billion, whereas her husband Sekar’s stake amounts to 35.2% at $1.6 billion.
Vembu’s version of him being involved in taking care of his autistic son goes against Srinivasan’s court filings. The article also mentioned conflicting versions of the genesis of Zoho and questioned some of Vembu’s past claims.
Currently, Zoho has a market value of between $5 billion – $15 billion. Last year, the software suite company crossed $1 billion globally in revenue. The SaaS company offers over 50 business applications to around 80 million users.
