A little bit more info on all of this for those that are interested. This is more personal between Vijay and me than it is of the conduct of M8 towards artists, employees and companies though.
The shareholding between Vijay and I was always supposed to be equal however in early 2017 Vijay told me that he had to take in another investor for $500k because I no longer had funds to invest.
He told me that this investor had been promised 50% of US profits for this. I was outraged, I asked how it made sense that we had invested $2 Million and he was giving away 50% of this for $500k?
He said, it was only 50% of US profits but to me that still felt outrageous as the US was the biggest market. I flew, with my friend the other original investor, to see him in Hong Kong and speak to him in person as he had become increasingly difficult to pin down any other way.
Vijay was staying in a very nice 5 star hotel in Mong Kok at the time, our hotels were considerably more downmarket.
I confronted him about what was going on, he seemed surprised that I was angry. He explained that the investors would put more money in if it was required and would take the company to the next level. He also told me that John Lennon was going to be released imminently and that, having trusted him for so long already, I should just trust him a little bit longer.
I remember asking whether it was his wife that was this new investor because I felt you could only offer a deal that good to someone you loved. He denied this was the case.
Doubtless I am too easily misled but I left Hong Kong agreeing to trust Vijay a little bit longer and see John Lennon released.
Communication improved for a short period of time although in hindsight now I’m not sure how much of what I was being told was completely accurate.
Communication deteriorated shortly after that again though as John Lennon’s release date was once more delayed.
Much more happened during this time which I won’t go into here but in the middle of 2018 Vijay wanted more funds again and said that this would reduce my shareholding in the company drastically.
He also claimed at that point that the investor who he said had put in $500k actually owned 50% of the business. I said this was not the case and not what he had told me but he claimed it was.
We had very heated arguments and email exchanges during this time and at the end of it I was more than a little tired of the whole thing.
I said that if he wanted to reduce my shareholding he could do so but only after my investment had been repaid. I said that actually, if I could recoup my investment he could take my shareholding and I would walk away from the company and happily never see him again.
I got a one line reply in an email to that, and this is quoted exactly from that email:
Q, as of now 100% of the business will go to the investors. They will pay back outstanding investors as the business allows.
I replied back that if he tried to do this I felt it was fraud and I would take the only action that was left to me.
I flew out to see him in LA at that time, surprising him at his home on a Sunday morning. He initially refused to talk to me, telling me that I should have had enough respect to call him first.
Eventually we did talk and he claimed that he had been let down by everyone and was now having to do things almost by himself. He said he wanted to go back to the way we set out and work with me together for everything. I am ashamed to admit that I believed this, perhaps because I was so desperate to try to make things work.
I still had no idea of all that had been done and how much money the company owed to so many people at that point though.
This was when Vijay asked if he could have European returns sent to the restaurant address and as I said, at the time I didn’t see anything wrong with that.
He also asked me to take over on European sales as he said the time difference from LA made it very difficult for him to do so.
I returned back to the UK and started making calls and sending emails out to companies. I started to hear stories back about how things were being handled, poor customer service and was not happy with any of it.
I spoke to Vijay about this and also about changing our policy for ordering online. I said that we needed to go back to Paypal rather than Shopify and needed to take 20% deposits on orders rather than the whole amount upfront.
He disagreed but I would not leave it at that. After about 10 minutes of trying to convince him of what to me seemed to be plainly obvious, he told me that he had listened enough, he had tried to be polite but that he was still the CEO and that he had made his decision.
It was at the point that I realised that nothing really had changed and likely never would.
When the news from Vimal and K A Kim broke I called Vijay and told him that I thought his position had become untenable and he had to step down. He still refused
It was then that I decided I had to take other action and shortly after that I made my post here requesting any information that anyone could provide.
There may be more information here than is wise for me to disclose at this juncture but I can substantiate everything that I have said so I believe that I am on solid ground legally.
One last note, I am not saying it is not so but I still to this day have not seen any evidence of $500k being put into the company by a new investor.
