Cafe Coffee Day Founder Siddhartha’s Body Recovered

Mangaluru: Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) founder-chairman V.G. Siddhartha is no more, as his body was found in Karnataka’s Netravathi river, near here, police said on Wednesday. He was 60. “Two fishermen found Siddhartha’s body early this morning about 500 metres away from the road bridge from where he alleged to have jumped into the river on Monday night,a Mangaluru Police Commissioner Sandeep Patil told reporters here. The port city of Mangaluru is about 360km west of Bengaluru. The body was found by the fishermen near Hoige Bazar in trousers but without shirt.

“It was identified to be Siddhartha’s with a gold ring on his right-hand finger, a digital watch on his left hand and shoes he was wearing when he appears to have jumped off the road bridge. On being asked about the body found with the torso naked and only trousers on, Khader said though it was for the police to investigate whether he took them off before jumping into the river, as they were not found on the bridge or in the vicinity during the 36-hour long search operation. The 36-hour long massive search in the river had continued over the last two night which led to the spot where the body surfaced and seen by the two fishermen. Two days prior to his disappearance, the coffee baron had left behind a note to his employees that revealed he was in deep debt. The mountain of debt was impairing his business as working capital requirements could not be met. It led him to sale his stakes in IT firm Mindtree that gave him some room to manoeuvre.

In his desperation, he was also reportedly in a dialogue with global beverage maker Coca-Cola for an equity sale in flagship Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) at an enterprise valuation of around Rs 10,000 crore may have been on the anvil. In a complaint to the police, his driver, who last saw him alive, said that Siddhartha told him to stop by the side soon as they drove on to the bridge and asked him to wait in the car at the end of the bridge as he wanted to walk up and had to make calls. (IANS)

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