(Image source from: Livemint)

The founder of India’s largest coffee chain Cafe Coffee Day VG Siddhartha is missing since Monday evening. Siddhartha is the son-in-law of former Karnataka Chief Minister SM Krishna.

The owner of Asia’s single-largest coffee estate, in a letter reportedly written by Siddhartha to the board of directors and his CCD family before he went missing, states: “failed to create the right profitable business model despite my best efforts”. He added, “I would like to say I gave it my all. I am very sorry to let down all the people that put their trust in 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….”

According to reports, Siddhartha got off from his car near a bridge across the Nethravathi River near Mangaluru, about 375km from Bengaluru, but did not return even after an hour. A panicked driver went down looking for him, but could not find him anywhere. He then alerted the family members who in turn informed the police.

Siddhartha's letter to the Board of Directors and the Coffee Day family also alleged harassment by the previous DG, Income Tax. “There was a lot of harassment from the previous DG income tax attaching our shares on two separate occasions to block our Mindtree deal and then taking position of our Cafe Coffee Day shares, although the revised returns have been filed by us. This is very unfair and has led to serious liquidity crunch,” the letter read.

                        (Image source from: Outlook India)

The letter also goes onto apologize to its employees. “I have failed to create the right profitable business model despite my best efforts… My intention was never to cheat anybody. I have failed as an entrepreneur. This is my sincere submission, I hope someday you will understand, forgive and pardon me,” read the letter.

Justifying his financials, Siddhartha also wrote, “I have enclosed a list of our assets and tentative value of each asset. As seen below our assets outweigh our liabilities and help repay everybody.”

Deputy Commissioner of Dakshin Kannada, Shreekanth Sentil, said, "We are trying to cover all angles. Our focus is on the search and rescue operation. We have eight teams scoring the river land with NDRF."

By Sowmya Sangam