Zoho founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu is at the centre of one of the world's costliest divorces, with a California court ordering him to deposit a $1.7 billion bond (around Rs 15,000 crore) amid divorce proceedings with his wife Pramila Srinivasan.
The case is the most expensive divorce involving an Indian businessman and ranks among the four costliest divorces worldwide.
Vembu's net worth is estimated at $5.85 billion, placing him among India's 40 richest people, though most of Zoho's shares are held by his siblings. The company, privately held, employs 12,000 people and serves 80 million users globally.
Vembu married Pramila Srinivasan in 1993, and the couple has a son. After nearly 25 years in the US' San Francisco Bay Area running Zoho, he moved in 2020 to Tamil Nadu to oversee rural initiatives and run Zoho from India.
Pramila Srinivasan filed for divorce in 2020. She alleged that Vembu abandoned her and their son, who has special needs, and secretly transferred key Zoho assets, including intellectual property and shares, to relatives in India. She claimed this was designed to reduce her legal entitlement under California's community property laws.
“My husband of 29 years not only abandoned me and our son,” she said in a 2023 court filing, “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.”
Vembu has denied wrongdoing, saying that he never reduced their shared financial interest and moved to India purely to pursue rural initiatives. He also claimed he asked Srinivasan and their son to join him in India, but the pandemic prevented that.
Court filings showed that Vembu's sister and brother own most of Zoho's shares, while Vembu holds only 5 per cent. Srinivasan's lawyers said that several asset transfers were hidden from her, including the $50 million sale of Zoho's intellectual property to an India-based company, ZPCL, with no clear record of payment. Vembu said the money from the sale is still held by the original US company, T&V Holdings.
Globally, the most expensive divorces include Bill and Melinda Gates ($73 billion), Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott ($38 billion), and Alec and Jocelyn Wildenstein ($3.8 billion). Other cases involve Rupert Murdoch and Steve Wynn, each exceeding $1 billion.
from NDTV News- Special https://ift.tt/ZKVuo1Y
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