VG Siddhartha's body recovered from Netravati river

Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) founder VG Siddhartha's body has been recovered from the banks of the Netravati river early today. The founder of India’s largest coffee chain had gone missing on Monday night en route Karnataka's Mangaluru. Accordinmg to reports, Siddhartha's body has been sent to Wenlock Hospital for postmortem.  

Earlier on Tuesday, speculation was rife on social media with the police even hinting that the CCD founder might have jumped into the Netravati River near Mangaluru on Monday evening where he was last seen by his driver. Siddhartha, who is the son-in-law of former Karnataka CM SM Krishna, also wrote a letter to the CCD Board of Directors saying that he fought for long but finally gave up. 

Born in Chikmagalur district of Karnataka, VG Siddhartha's family has been in the business of coffee plantation for around 140 years. He earned a Masters from the Mangalore University and joined JM Financial Limited in 1983-1984 in Mumbai as a management trainee/intern in Portfolio Management and securities trading. 

Siddhartha had opened the first CCD store in Bangalore’s Brigade Road. Currently, it is India's largest coffee chain with around 1,700 cafes, 48,000 vending machines, 532 kiosks and 403 ground coffee selling outlets across the country.

According to reports, CCD was in early talks with Coca Cola to sell a substantial stake, as the company was eyeing a valuation of Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 crore, but the deal failed to happen. Siddhartha is also on the board for GTV, Mindtree, Liqwid Krystal, Way2Wealth and Ittiam. 

Recently, he sold 20 per cent stake in Mindtree to Larsen & Toubro through block deal for about Rs 3,210 crore, and it led to the downfall of the previous Mindtree management who had entreated Siddhartha not to sell out to Larsen, but failed to convince him.

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In his last letter written to the board and family of CCD, VG Siddhartha said, "My intention was never to cheat or mislead anybody, I have failed as an entrepreneur. This is my sincere submission, I hope someday you will understand, forgive and pardon me."

"I fought for a long time but today I gave up as I could not take any more pressure from one of the private equity partners forcing me to buy back shares, a transaction I had partially completed six months ago borrowing a large sum of money from a friend," he letter added.