‘Evaly CEO Rassel planned to declare bankruptcy’

Controversial e-commerce platform Evaly’s Chief Executive Officer Mohammad Rassel planned to declare bankruptcy if he failed to sell the company to an international or a big domestic organisation with liabilities, according to RAB.

During initial questioning, Rassel and his wife Shamima Nasrin, the company’s chairman, said the total debt stood at over Tk 1,000 crore, RAB’s Legal and Media Wing Director Commander Khandaker Al Moin told the media on Friday. 

Evaly’s financial statement submitted to the commerce ministry showed its total liabilities jump by Tk 540 crore in two years. In FY20-21, the liabilities soared to Tk 543 crore from Tk 141 crore in the previous FY. In FY18-19, the amount was Tk 3 crore.

The company’s liabilities to its 2,00,000 customers stood at Tk 311 crore in FY21, which was Tk 128 crore in the previous FY. On the other hand, its liabilities to suppliers were Tk 206 crore, which was Tk 10.46 crore a year ago.

Quoting a report, Moin said its debt stood at Tk 403 crore until February 28, while current assets were worth Tk 65 crore. Evaly took around Tk 214 crore in advance from customers. It owes customers and companies around Tk 190 crore.

“Rassel could not give any satisfactory answer on how they would refund the customers,” Moin said.

The Evaly CEO and chairman were detained from their Mohammadpur residence on Thursday after a customer filed a fraud case against the duo at Gulshan Police Station that morning.

“Evaly has been a loss-making company since its inception. All expenses were met with customers’ money, leading to debt accumulation,” Moin said.

Little capital to begin with Rassel quit his bank job in 2017 and launched a business selling children’s items. He sold his business and, with the capital, floated Evaly in December 2018. 

Moin said Evaly’s business strategy was to partially repay the debts of old customers and suppliers by imposing liabilities on the new customers. They were doing business through ‘liability transfer’.

Rassel has several other business platforms like e-food, e-books and e-markets. Evaly currently has over 4.4 million customers.

Evaly chooses products - such as mobile, tv, fridge, AC, motorbike, car, household products, cosmetics, package tours, hotel booking, jewellery, healthcare materials and furniture etc - which have high demand. Discounts on these products attracted customers, the RAB official said.

Plan to sell company

Rassel and his wife told RAB that their goal was to create Evaly’s “brand value” before selling it to an established international organisation with liabilities and take dividends, Moin said. They also travelled to different countries for this purpose.

Another plan was to impose liability by offering company shares to various established companies. They also planned to get listed on the capital market when Evaly completed three years, Moin said. 

“The Evaly CEO planned to declare bankruptcy if all else failed,” Moin said.

‘Properties worth crores’

There were around 2,000 management staff and 1,700 temporary employees at Evaly, which fell to 1,300 staff and about 500 temporary staff. At one stage, the employees were paid a total monthly salary of around Tk 5 crore, which now stands at Tk 1.5 crore.

Although many Evaly employees have not been paid since June this year, the CEO and chairman have received Tk 10 lakh per month as salary. They also use two expensive cars (Range Rover and Audi) at the company’s expense, the RAB officer said.

The company has about 25-30 vehicles. Rassel has properties worth crores in Savar.

Rassel and Shamima on 3-day remand

RAB handed over Rassel and his wife Shamima to police on Friday morning. Later, they were produced before a Dhaka court where Gulshan police Inspector (investigation) Aminul Islam sought 10 days to interrogate the couple in a case of embezzling customers’ money through fraud.

The court remanded Rassel and Shamima for three days.