Today I gave up said V G Siddhartha in letter to Coffee Day family before he went missing

Bengaluru, July 30: V G Siddhartha, founder of Cafe Coffee Day and son-in-law of former Karnataka chief minister, S M Krishna in a letter said that he had no intention of cheating anyone.

The letter written to the Coffee Day family and Board of Directors says that he regrets as he failed to create the right profitable model despite his best efforts.

I would like to say that 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, a transaction, I partially completed six months back, by borrowing a large sum of money from a friend."

My team, auditors and senior management are totally unaware of all my transactions. The law should hold me and only me accountable, as I have withheld this information from everybody including my family. My intention was never to cheat or mislead anybody. I have failed as an entrepreneur. I sincerely request each of you to be strong and continue running these businesses with a new management, Siddhartha also wrote in the letter.

Siddhartha went missing on Monday night. Reports say that he had got of his car near a bridge across the Nethravathi River near Mangalore, but did not return even after an hour. The driver went looking for him, but could not find him anywhere. He informed the family, who in turn intimated the police.

The police have launched a massive search for him. His driver told the police that Siddhartha was talking on the phone when he got off the car near Kotekar.

The police said that he was on a business trip to Mangalore.

It may be recalled that in March he had sold his stake in Mindtree to L&T. In 2017, he found himself in trouble when the Income Tax Department raided his premises and found Rs 650 crore concealed income from the documents seized.