Delhi’s glitterati is pouring back to the Capital post their ‘summer break’ and amongst saucy stories of who did what at St. Tropez, London, Moscow, Ibiza and how lavish Siddharth Gupta of Emaar-MGF’s birthday bash was, so-called hi-society is speculating on what Nikesh Arora planning to do post his exit from SoftBank. If you ask me, he has got enough money that his future generation can live a great life without doing nothing. But yes Nikesh isn’t the kind to retire so early. His mentor, Masayoshi Son, the founder of SoftBank made a u-turn after publicly announcing Nikesh Arora as his heir when Son retires in 2016-17 and stated that he wants run the show for another 5-years, why should Nikesh retire.
Their are tons of theories on why Nikesh Arora suddenly quit SoftBank on June21, 2016. By the way SEC has launched an investigation against Arora.The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will be probing transactions related to former SoftBank president Nikesh Arora, The probe comes after shareholders of the Japanese investment group demanded an investigation into allegations surrounding the executive, including those involving Arora’s compensation, potential conflicts of interest over his roles outside the firm, as well as certain international transactions led by him. SEC probe doesn’t mean much. Rajat Gupta is a rare case who got convicted for ‘insider-trading’.
Anyway, Delhi has extra concern for Nikesh Arora because he married Delhi’s society gal – Ayesha Thapar. Everybody in Delhi knows Nikesh Arora. Some even say, “I was with ‘NIKU’…” NIKU WHO??? Arrey Bhai – Nikesh Arora… Nikesh Arora and Ashton Kutcher became friends when Nikesh helped Ashton by making Google invest huge in Uber. By the way Ashton Kutcher is major stake-holder in Uber. With SoftBank, Nikesh funded maximum tech-ventures in India and amongst them is Ola, which is Uber copy-cat. Theories are also that Nikesh made Son invest too much in India and that irked shareholders. The $2 Billion Dollar that SoftBank invested in Indian start-ups made Nikesh Arora the poster boy of FDI and darling of Arun Jaitley and Narendra Modi. But now that $2 Billion Dollar investment looks like a shaky one. So Dilliwalas have a conspiracy theory that Ola and Uber will merge as Nikesh is facilitating this ultra secret deal and then Nikesh and Ashton will dominate the globe in taxi-aggregating service.
Other far-fetched speculation was that he will be appointed as the CEO of PM Modi’s pet project – STARTUP INDIA. But when enfant terrible – Subramaniam Swami went after Raghu Ram Rajan (R3), the RBI Governor and got him to quit and next gunned for Arvind Subramanian, the Chief Economic Advisor to GoI, gossip about it diluted.
Some say that Ayesha Thapar and Niksh Arora will move to Hollywood as Ayesha has always secretly nursed a desire of GLAM Bollywood/Hollywood life and Nikesh Arora can move into Hollywood A-Club courtesy Ashton Kutcher and Miranda Kerr, the girlfriend of Snapchat founder, Evan Spiegel. Victoria Secret’s Angel and Hollywood starlet, Miranda Kerr was in India with beau, Evan for for Ambani’s JIo Startup Awards and Nikesh and Evan Spiegel are good buddies.
Anyway we got to wait and watch what Nikesh Arora is planning ahead and how serious the SEC probe turns out to be.
@Jack the truth is Nikesh Arora was fired but the language was couched in a way to insulate the respective parties. and the indicator is markets — Technically with the president and heir-apparent leaving should have had a negative bias on the stock whereas the opposite happened …there was an uptick.
It’s also unfair when you say raguram rajan left coz of swamy…truth is rajan wanted a shorter term whereas the govt was committed for 3 year by when it will be time for the next general elections and so there will be continuity in the monetary policy. also rajan is on leave from chicago booth school, which he can extend to a maximum of 5 years.
Yes the SEC probe does mean a lot..precisely the reason why Son parted ways with arora..any PE deals has lot of shades of grey and that is exactly the reason why PE firms stay low key and avoid controversies.
And, yes am sure you have also heard of a guy called preet bharara!
@Sri…agree…fired…resigned…these are just ‘fancy’ words that buffer the stock value.
Raghuram Rajan obviously did not quit coz of Sub Swamy but anybody with a little pride cannot tolerate such slanders from a ruingg party MP and Government keeping mum..
I don’t give SEC probe much credence, at least in Nikesh’s case… Internally he was cleared of charges levied by shareholders. Now if USA wants to corner India or SoftBank wants to to mess with Nikesh… SEC probe will move accordingly.
If L capital can survive and L Capital’s Asia head… rest are all saints.
whats the deal on L capital?
@hurleen L Capital is fine…Funder…Thakran and Fund Seekers, all happy. Give and take and everything goes smooth…
@Jack thats too tame. whats the scoop
What about anshu jain and pc?